Arsenal's opened its CL campaign against Sparta Prague with a win and they won ugly which is a beautiful thing. They were not their fluent self but they put away their chances when they got them even though it took them sometime to warm up. This is the second game that they won late in the second half which would indicate that this squad is still finding its groove but the encouraging thing is that they are winning.
The scoring is coming from players who are not exactly known for their sharp shooting which is ideal because it takes pressure off RVP. Cesc got off the mark early this season with his first goal against Sparta. Hleb got his second goal in less than a week and is on a bit of a roll. The assists were provided by Clichy who continues his bright form and Bacary Sagna who showed that he was not shy coming forward to put pressure on the Sparta defenders.
I loved how Cesc got into Repka's face (and earned a lot of booing from the crowd) and mimicked Repka's limp. The boys are learning to be tough, resilient, obnoxious, in-your-face warriors --- great to see.
clichy will be a contender for player of the season this year. His contributions so so far have been invaluable with 2 goals coming from assists from him. I also think hleb looks good this season, i always knew he had the potential to score goals and now he has proved all those losers who bad mouth their own teams players wrong. Nice to see sagna slot in well so far and come up with an assist. I would still prefer to have 2 forwards however as Van persie looked a bit isolated in the fulham match. Great resiliance from arsenal today, we got pushed around and still came up with the win, very nice to see.