Big game Bendtner batters Orient

Last night, Arsenal moved towards putting the despair of Sunday's Carling Cup Final defeat behind them with a medicinal thrashing of Leyton Orient. Time will tell whether the beating of limited, but spirited, League One opposition was enough to begin to repair the damaged confidence of our players. I hope so, because the players will know that, with all due respect to last night's opposition, far greater challenges lie ahead. From my point of view, I enjoyed seeing the "B team" finally put an FA Cup performance worth the description on at the Grove. It was about time. Good, too, to see Conor Henderson given his first team debut, Miquel starting again and Diaby back in the fray.

With Arsène Wenger giving us the news that Robin van Persie will be absent for the whole of March as a minimum, it was important for our back up strikers to find their shooting boots last night. Especially so with the visit of Sunderland and a chance to put real pressure on Manchester United ahead of their trip to Liverpool this weekend. Against the triers of Leyton Orient, Marouane Chamakh got his first goal for what seems like forever, sliding in a neat finish after good work from Rosicky. Nicklas Bendtner, simply put, filled his boots and netted his second hat trick for the club in just under a year. The naysayers criticising him for scoring a couple of tap ins and a penalty, as if one goal is never just one goal, will have had less to complain about last night. Although I'm sure they won't be slow to point out that it was "only" Orient.

His first goal came after Eboue dribbled past a couple of players, before running into his customary cul-de-sac, Diaby took over, kept the ball for about an hour before slipping the ball left to Kieran Gibbs. Gibbs sent over the very definition of a "hanging cross" and Bendtner rose to thump the ball past the keeper and into the corner of the net. His next goal was so quintessentially Bendtner, I wouldn't be surprised if he one day has the sequence of images framed on a wall in his house. First, he completely miscontrolled a ball, then, chasing out to the touchline, recovered possession, cutting into the box, ignoring a better placed team mate and then curling home a very well struck shot. The hat trick goal came via the penalty spot after a foul ended a lovely little Gibbs dribble in the second half.

That wasn't the limit of our full backs attacking adventures though. The final goal of the evening came when Eboue, who was shockingly poor defensively, sent a ball from the right side of the penalty area all the way across the six yard box to the other side. And Gaël Clichy Sagna'ed it into the opposite corner of the goal. He must have been watching his fellow Frenchman in training. Incredibly, after nearly 8 years at the club, this was Clichy's first goal in London, N5.

There was a late chance for an Orient player, Cox?, to score what would have been a dream goal, racing half the length of a pitch to bring himself eye to eye with Almunia. I don't think anyone would have begrduged him a goal, but Almunia broke the habit of a lifetime and made the save. Nasri then played a bit of "this is my ball and you ain't taking it off me" before firing narrowly over. And that was very much that. The Orient players could look forward to their trip to Las Vegas and Arsenal? Arsenal can look forward to another FA Cup trip to Old Trafford. With only Manchester City posing a recognisable threat to threat to the winners of the top of the table clash, the draw can only be described as open.

But then, that is to forget the despair of just four days ago. My short-term memory may be bad, but it's not that bad! Not to mention the rather obvious fact that United, in their own back yard, are hardly going to be a stroll on Brighton beach for our players. I'm not sure that, beyond the return to goals of our two strikers, and the hour of playing time that Abou Diaby should surely have marked with a lovely goal, there's much else to say about last night. And for that reason, I shall leave it there.

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