Final Whistle

As we are the Premier Football Blog, we thought that we should talk about Arsenal’s stunning demolition of Porto at the Emirates last night in their last 16 of the UEFA Champion’s League 2010 second-leg clincher.

Arsenal sailed through 6-2 on aggregate, despite a nervy first-round performance suggesting they might falter in this two-legged race.

Falter they did not, and Arsenal proved why they are looking more and more like the potential title winners they are shaping up to be with an “Exhibit A” example of how they have added the ability to score in multiples to their young squad, despite seemingly lacking frontmen.

Arsenal won 5-0 in a home romp which saw Bendtner, Nasri and Eboue score some wonderful counter-attacking goals resulting from fine football all round.

Bendtner, who has been hammered by Arsenal fans and neutrals alike for most of his career, showed why Wenger sticks by him by banging in a hat-trick which included a vital opening brace (an injury-time penalty sealed the deal and added icing to his cake). Without Cesc Fabregas.

So, while we are not another Arsenal fan-blog, and, in fact, are one of the few football publications which manages to exist most of its life outside of London, we’ve got to say we loved how they played last night.

And, credit where its due, say well done to Arsene Wenger and his men for going about the home leg of the tie in exactly the right way. There is more than an outside chance of a double for Arsenal on last night’s evidence (please note how Chealsea and Man United are wobbling at the moment before leaving any scathing comments on this statement!) and it will be interesting to see just how quickly the “Wenger Out” crowd is swayed by getting anywhere close to that lofty target.

In any case, last night is another example of one thing: there’s only one Premier League.