my first visit to the grove this season, to see the kids beat the high flying baggies 2-0. Wenger picked a young side (well an even younger side should i say) with the polish keeper chesney hawks in goal (clever move) gilbert, swiss , sylvester the cat and gibbs SR across the back. They looked pretty good most of the game, especially senderos who showed no signs of annoyance at being forced into the carling cup team instead of the first team proper. In the middle ramsey looked solid and tinyweenyickle jack wilshere was the star of the show. coquelin did well in the denilson role and traore and sunu started on the flanks. They could have done more really. up front i thought sanchez watt (crazy name) struggled for most of the game. west brom did well, roared on by thousands of traveling brummies who easily outsang the rest of us (56,500 in tonight, not bad for a reserve game). they had several good chances and we looked a bit flat really. swiss tony had a good effort and watt hit the post; wilshere sparkled and made everything that was good. he also changed the game inadvertently at least: when jerome thomas (ex gunner) fouled him the wst brom player appeared to push him down as he was getting up and the ref saw it as a red card.

in the second half west brom started by playing keep ball for what seemed like ages and arsenal had no ideas ...then arsene must have got bored with this and sent on carlos vela. now things changed. sunu off and we had a striker that wanted to score at last. he had a couple of chances then a great shot which dean keily could only push out into the path of watt who finished superbly,. 1 nil to the arsenal and massive relief all round. after that there was only one team in it. ascramble in the goal and a crazy chest back from a west brom defender and vela nipped in and made it 2: game over. the baggies had a good chance near the end but fluffed it. the emirates emptied of happy fans and i headed back up the motorway with the top down ... then it rained. no problem at 80 but when you run into traffic and lane closures.. never mind a little rain never hurt anyone...

toodle pip