Song was booked for a body check, fair enough and Diaby was booked for pulling his shirt part way over his head!
A noisy stadium, as was expected, with the 800 Gooners unable to compete vocally in a crowd of 49,521. Denilson was hit hard, waist high in the first minute. Good save by Almunia at the near post. Early block off the ball on Nasri. Ade shot over from just outside the box. Fener tried a long throw into our box - Aragones eh - what a tactician. 0-1 to Arsenal as Cesc around the half way line played a low hard killer through ball to Ade who ran on before sliding the ball under the keeper in Joe Cool mode. Just nine minutes gone and a brilliant start.
One minute later, Cesc round about half way again with the same pass but this time to a flying Theo who slipped between full back and central defender, blazed on, was pushed wide by the keeper but just about kept his balance to hook it home just inside the near post. 0-2 and there were just about ten minutes on the clock. Great composure by Theo. Game over?
Brilliant footwork on the right by Diaby who is playing as an advanced midfield in-the-hole almost type position. A ball across to Nasri who might have scored if he hit it earlier but his shot was met by a decent save. We are playing a sort of 4-4-1-1 or 4-5-1 defending. Both defences horribly square. Almunia kicked with a foot left in whilst making a brave save. Great cross by Theo - Alberto Carlos who? Song booked. From the free kick Song was fouled at the far post and the ball's headed across for Silvestre to score an own goal into the top corner. 1-2 and the crowd respond as expected on 19 minutes. Two minutes later Diaby on the left side is holding off two players having taken another low through ball, he twinkles his toes and fires low across the keeper to make it 1-3. Another great goal marred by a booking for the odious offence of pulling his shirt part way over his head - not even taking it off. Is the ref wearing brown Turkish shorts?
Ade was offside more times than Fener. Nasri taken out - player warned. Cesc taken out - player warned. And this continued till we wore them out by piss-take passing which finally saw them give up on serious fouls due to them being knackered. Cesc kicked no free kick. Denilson flattened and at long last a yellow card. Fener are playing moderately crap and fire one seriously wide to confirm it. Handball - no card. Arsenal are now controlling the game with triangular passes, lots of them - all very controlled take the sting out of the game type stuff. Diaby tripped on the edge of the box - nothing. Handball edge of box - nothing. Theo tripped - nothing. Diaby held - free kick - shock horror. Adebayor axed. Guiza shot just wide and although we are in control this was a reminder that the game wasn't over yet. Great save down at feet by our captain in goal. Followed soon after by another decent save from a shot hit from range. Adebayor held - nothing. Ade hauled down - nothing. Good defending by Clichy. Half time 1-3.
Nasri tripped and needing treatment thus a Uruguayan gets a yellow card - no change there then. Kanuesque - that's the word I want for Diaby who I make to be about the fifth player we have who can play in the hole. If only a couple of them could play defensive midfield because we have nothing in front of our defenders who are very square and were very nearly caught out quite a few times. But I digress - from the Cesc free kick the ball is not cleared and Song hammered a powerful low volley from a dropping ball into the corner of the net. Cool. 1-4 Arsenal from the sort of chance that might have seen Eboue hit the corner flag.
After this we sat back a bit, eased off a tad and did not attack as much. We didn't need to. One iffy moment when Almunia had to save on the edge of our box before we hacked it off the line then saw Eboue make a brave well-judged block. Ramsey on for Diaby (72 minutes). Arsenal caught square again with an over the top down the middle ball. Nasri to Cesc and almost a 5th. We were caught square yet-a-bloody-gain and our central partnership too slow to cover fully so a header by Song puts their man through and a chip over the advancing Almunia makes it 2-4. Game on again? Well not really because we just took control back and started passing again.
Ramsey fired one over. Djourou for Walcott (84) and Vela for Adebayor (86). Theo was great and Adebayor worked seriously hard on the night. Vela nearly in and Senturk picked up a seriously overdue yellow card. We were looking for a 5th now and toying with Fener. Ramsey drilled one hard and low which went in off the post. 2-5 Arsenal. Piss easy. Ramsey was our 7th different goal scorer in European competition this season so far.
Clearly Fenerbahce are nowhere near as good as last season, clearly our defence was rocky. Quite possibly Almunia was our man of the match which tells it's own story, but this was still no easy place to score 5 goals and you can in any case only beat what is in front of you. We pasted them and they won't be relishing a journey to London for another good hiding, which it looks like they could well get.