SURPRISE, SURPRISE! We could and should have won yesterday, but that’s football (or more like: that’s Arsenal!), and to be honest now we’ve pretty much got 4th place secured it doesn’t mean much in terms of our season. That said, beating Spurs never goes down badly.

Tottenham did OK in the first half but we dominated the second, and as we hit the woodwork for the third time, I started thinking: This isn’t gonna be our day, is it?

Thankfully I was wrong and we came from behind scoring two, BOTH from set-pieces - amazing! Two great balls from Cesc, two great finishes from Kolo and Adebayor.

Myles Palmer says Arsenal can’t play without Cesc and to an extent I agree with him. He came on for Freddie, who got injured just before half time. Without him our team seems to lack creativity and momentum. At still just 19, we have to wonder just how important he is going to become in years to come.

A quick word for Abou Diaby who yesterday was truly outstanding. His play was driven, composed and uncompromising. He gave 100% from start to finish. It’s quite remarkable how what a similar role to he plays to Patrick Vieira. The similarity is genuinely uncanny. Again, at 20 years old what a promising future this young lad has.

After the game, Arsene spoke about how it would have been nice to win this game as a gift for David Dein:

“We wanted of course to give a victory to David today and of course it was an eventful week, [but] it will not distract I feel.”

“We should have won by five goals. It’s frustrating. It’s been the story of the season. We had fantastic spirit and a great quality to our game but we have to learn to make the maximum of what we create.”

There’s also some news floating about today about how Arsene will be the one to ‘handpick’ the successor to David Dein. Read all about it here.

Next up is a visit from Fulham on Sunday at the Grove. The last match before we have a little say in the title race when Chelsea pay us a visit.

SO the main news today is that of David Dein’s departure from Arsenal — the man who brought Wenger to the club and helped renegotiate Thierry Henry’s new contract last summer.

The reason for his sudden departure is still a little bit vague but it’s not foolish to assume that it is to do with the proposition of a takeover from Stan Kroenke. With Peter Hill-Wood and the rest of the board currently strongly opposing a takeover from the American billionaire, Dein disagreed and was promptly sacked (or he resigned, who knows).

Dein clearly believes that in the current situation in this country, a takeover is the only realistic way for Arsenal to be competing on a financial scale with the other big teams.

Now, the Daily Mail reports that David Dein and Arsene Wenger were spotted having a meal in north London after the win against Man City. What is interesting in that article is that with Dein and Kroenke already owning 25% of shares — with a few other holdings, they could trigger an automatic takeover bid themselves, together.

“With more than 25 per cent, Mr Kroenke and Mr Dein already have enough votes to block changes to the club’s constitution. Mopping up a few other holdings owned by City institutions could take the stake over the 30 per cent threshold that triggers an automatic bid under Stock Exchange rules.”

“Smaller shareholders, including investor fans, would then face the choice of backing the existing board - and possibly losing Wenger when his contract expires at the end of next season - or selling out to a Dein-Kroenke takeover.”

Interesting stuff, and although it all appears purely to be theory at the moment, it would be interesting to discover whether the majority of investor fans and other shareholders would back the current board, or whether they see foreign investment as the next necessary step to power Arsenal forward.

Anyway, I’m sure everything will become much clearer over the coming weeks and months.

A WELL-EARNED three points and a result which takes us up to third above Liverpool who play Middlesbro’ tomorrow night.

We started brightly and with Rosicky firing home from an Eboue cross after 12, things were looking positive. It was almost a carbon copy of his goal on Saturday, with the defender making the error to let him get in front of him.

From then on we played good passing football, but just couldn’t find that second goal and we were punished when Jens mis-kicked a clearance to give away possession. Beasley scored after he was put through on the stroke of half-time.

1-1 and how? We we’re by far the better team — How typical of this season! The Beast came on after 30 minutes when Abou Diaby got injured. Cesc then had a great long-range effort saved.

Both teams started the second half well. Adebayor had a good header saved and Hleb fired wide. Man City played better and had a few chances at their end.

The defining moment came when the ball ricocheted off a Man City player to fall perfectly at Cesc’s feet outside the box. Greeted by shouts of ’shoooot’ from the crowd, he duly obliged and slammed it past the keeper after taking a touch. An excellent, composed finish — the second for him in as many games.

The Beast wrapped it up 7 minutes later after Hleb supplied a ball from the right. The Brazilian placed the ball into the far-post from just outside the 6 yard box with his first touch. Hopefully a that’ll be confidence booster for him.

Speaking straight after the game, Arsene said:

“I think we deserved the win tonight, we had a lot of possession, created a lot of chances and when Manchester City came back to 1-1, it was a test in the second half but we kept our game, were patient and scored.”

A good result and a positive performance. We’re now left thinking: if only our midfielders we’re scoring goals earlier in the season!