We're doomed ....

The Arse 3
(van der Pussie 52nd, Eboue 83rd, Baptista 88th)

Hamburgers 1
(van der Vaart 4th)

At first it looked like more of the same at the Emirates last night.

Visitors plonking in an early one and then closing up shop while we toil away in vain against the woodwork, hyper-ed keepers and the gods.

When van der Vaart walloped in a stunner in the 4th minute, Gooners worldwide sighed collectively at the prospect of another long night of nail-biting, crotch-grabbing and general thrashing in agony on living room sofas.

Not to take anything away from the Dutch star but the goal apparently stunned him as well and that's no small thing when he's used to scoring a stunner as you can see below ...

This is Mrs Sylvie van der Vaart

(I've waited for a long time to post her on this blog actually)

Fabs was having a tough time in midfield, wurst-fed Hamburger midfielders running a tight ship and knocking Arsenal's pint-sized wizards about seemingly at will.

Then Fabs came out all fiery in the second half and Arsenal looked more purposeful but we were still labouring in the final third and Hamburg looked just as likely to score.

Come the 52nd minute and van da Pussie cracked one in off a superb pass from Cesc, formerly known as the Mulleted One.

Suddenly Hamburg had to push forward (though God knows why, cos they're already out of both the Champions League and the UEFA Cup both) and started leaving gaps in both right and left channels.

But Arsenal was still struggling to create clear-cut chances - the only types that they would condescend to miss in recent games - and da Pussie of course had to get his yellow card (70th), whereupon Wenger took him off (71st for Adebayor) in order to ensure we'd still have eleven on the pitch till the end of the game.

Come the 76th and Wenger was sweating buckets - the crowd prompted him with chants of Theo, Theo and taking the hint, sent in the teenager for the hardworking but ineffective Ljungberg.

Then after 81 mins, Wenger took off Hleb for Baptista and his bulk together with Theo's more direct penetration (oh the impatience of young men everywhere!) it made that little bit of difference.

Fabs to Theo to Eboue who lets fly his first shot that night that wasn't aimed at the old Highbury goal - and the ball squirms under Wachter into the net.

It was stunning - one Gooner I know had actually went to bed minutes earlier sobbing himself to sleep at the thought of playing in the UEFA with Spuds. And he's much older than me.

Then the Hamburger Filhaber shoots from distance, Lehman saved well and sets off a galloping Arse counter. Theo scoots down the left, sees Henry at the centre and *gasp! ... sends the cross to Baptista who was unmarked.

The Beast gleefully smashes the ball in with his head and suddenly the spectre of playing at Spuds level receded - hopefully for good.

And uh, hey thanks Sylvie, for letting your man play with us for a while.

We know how happy he is to get home every day ... right?

:P

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P/S: Hopefully the hex has moved northwards by now ...

Sir Alex Ferguson was left to bemoan his side's wastefulness in front of goal for the second Champions League match in succession as Manchester United failed to turn territorial dominance into tangible reward last night.

"We are disappointed," Ferguson lamented. "We threw it away, there is no question of that. You need to score goals to win football matches and we didn't have enough in the last third of the field to do that. We had some good opportunities but the finishing was disappointing."