And So It Begins: 1-0 to the Arsenal

The "new era" at Arsenal, as so many are now calling it, has officially begun, and it started tonight with One-Nil to the Arsenal. Perhaps the famous scoreline is a sign of things to come. Perhaps we're turning over a new leaf and we'll be competing for major honours at the end of the season. But there is one thing I have to say about tonight's win: it was really less than inspiring.

An excellent win to be sure, but we looked unimaginative and flat throughout. It just seems like over the last few weeks we have been too obsessed with keeping the ball in the opponent's final third rather than actually doing anything with it. This was the case again tonight when we continued to get nowhere fast. In the end we were unable to break down the Dynamo Kyiv defense and our goal came off a long ball (although give full credit to our new captain Fabregas as his long free kick forward was absolutely fabulous.)

Of course Dynamo Kyiv deserve some credit as well. Part of the reason we couldn't break them down is because they were so compact and determined to keep us out. And their counterattacks tonight were at times deadly. Luckily though we were able to stop them from scoring (barely: Almunia made a spectacular save to keep the score level right before we took the lead), and Bendtner was cool, calm, and collected as he took Fabregas's ball down and finished crisply.

But if there were a number of negatives, there were also a number of positives from this match. Fabregas, now wearing the captain's armband, returned to his form of old and had an excellent game. You just get the feeling that with the responsibility of being the skipper, Fabregas will put in, if it's possible, even more determined and heartfelt performances. I think this really could be the dawn of a new era. A new Fabregas, a new team spirit, and hopefully at the end of the season, a new piece of silverware for the trophy cabinet.

So an old scoreline, progress into the last 16 of the Champions League, and perhaps the beginning of a dawn for Arsenal. I'm taking the optimist's point of view on this and saying that this is the beginning of a wonderful rest of the season. Certainly if we can use the confidence gained tonight and draw on all of our reserves to get a win against Chelsea on Sunday then we will truly be back in the fight. Until next time,

Fab 4