Pious lot those Villarreal players. Franco, you know, barn door safe for quite a lot of the game, has blamed God for our victory. "We did everything we could but at times football is not just and I guess God wanted Arsenal to go through." Just confirms what many of us have thought this season in Europe I guess, or else it's a back-handed compliment to Le Prof. Still, I was very surprised they didn't manage to score, just as well really, we didn't look much like we would either.

At the start of the game my biggest fear was that King Kolo would draw a booking for some nonsense and miss the final he so deserves to be in, fortunately that didn't happen. My other hope was that Jose would finally have a massive European game, regrettably that also didn't happen. Fortunately though it's a team game, and where some were distinctly missing, others stepped up. Anyone care to slag off Gilberto now? Monster game from the Brazilian, and he even managed to find Arsenal players with his passes from time to time. Way more than most of the rest of the team managed.

However it is invidious to be too critical, we didn't play well, probably a mixture of inexperience and Spuds hangover, but we went through. From someone who remembers when it was the only way we played, it's good to see an Arsenal side try to dig in even when they weren't playing well. Let's face it, you need to be able to play ugly as well as pretty to get any place. Just look at what happened earlier in the season when we couldn't.

There's not much you can say about Mad Jens, he has been playing so well recently, even his worst detractors must now admit that he is a top keeper. Hardly seems necessary to say it was in no way a penalty, 'cos it doesn't matter now. Except maybe Clichy needs to learn from it and be a tad smarter against the Jaques Cousteaus of footy in the future.

Incidently, everyone seems to be slagging off Forlan for missing an open goal, but I got the distinct impression that Jens was only just in front of him, and making himself as big as possible (scary thought). Kudos to Jens I reckon, not so much of a miss.

I don't really have a preference for tonight, I reckon we could beat either in Paris, we'll be the underdogs again, and we seem to play better when we are.

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