Goal feast on the menu for Sunday brunch

I am no fan of early KOs — and I only have a short stroll around to the ground. It seems that very few Blackburn fans bothered to make a crack-of-dawn schlep down from the north-west, but for all those Gooners travelling from far and wide, who might’ve been forced to forsake their Sunday lie-ins, their efforts were well rewarded, with a veritable smorgasbord of a footballing Sunday brunch.

The Gunners produced the sort of sumptuous display that leaves you feeling sorry for the relative paucity of entertainment on offer elsewhere. Thierry Henry picked a good afternoon to introduce his little girl to the Arsenal, but I was more than a little surprised watching MOTD on Sunday night, to see that his ex-teammate, Patrick Vieira had made the mistake of going to Stamford Bridge instead.

Personally, I always blame that dirge of an Elvis song, The Wonder of You for the Gunners failure to come out of the traps at home games. Of all the millions of uplifting, energetic tunes that might’ve got the players’ adrenaline pumping as they’re standing in the tunnel just prior to a game, we had to settle for a downbeat, romantic lullaby more likely to put them in a coma.

Meanwhile 55,000 seething Gooners had hardly taken their seats, when Mannone and Vermaelen were caught cold by Robinson’s hoof into the box. Yet time was when a team like Blackburn taking an early lead at our place would be a precursor to an agonising afternoon. Nowadays, scoring an early goal against the Gunners would appear to be akin to yanking the tail of a sleeping tiger. You could sense Tommie the Tank’s determination to atone, for allowing Nzonzi to outjump him and head home Rover’s opener. As Vermaelen charged forward to intercept the ball, 17 minutes in, there was a moment when he turned to appeal for an infringement. But I adore what it says about the Belgian’s character that instead of standing there stamping his feet and shaking his fists, like many a petulant Premiership player, he sensed the momentum of the move he’d started and strode on to receive a return, before spanking the ball past Robinson from the edge of the D.

When a defender blasts in a goal from distance, these tend to be memorable moments, by nature of the fact that they only happen once in a blue moon. But if we were wondering whether his screamer against Wigan was something of a fluke, our £10m centre-back went and reinforced his cult-hero status by proving otherwise.

Vermaelen has brought much to the Arsenal party, not least a positively infectious appetite for the game. Okay so our defence continues to be exposed from time to time and Alex Song could do with a little more support, in his bustling efforts to act as the bulwark for our backline. Unlike Marie Antoinette, Arsène admitted post-match that we can’t have our cake and eat it, since it seems inevitable that some elements of defensive security will be sacrificed on the altar of le Prof’s football philosophy. Still I’m all for giving the opposition a goal start every week, if we’re guaranteed such an emphatic response.

In this sort of form, the Gunners are utterly irresistible going forward, capable of breezing past the most obdurate of defensive objects. Despite some great results, Cesc Fabregas has been a little off the boil prior to Sunday’s game, guilty of casually giving the ball away far too often. But as if to mark his mentor’s 13th anniversary, Cesc conjured up a devastating display, scoring one and putting three on a plate, with passes of perfect precision and pace that all strikers must dream of, enabling Van Persie, Arshavin and Walcott to bury the ball without even breaking stride.

It was just what the doctor ordered, for Theo to come on at 4-2 up and score with almost his first touch of the season. By which time Rovers’ manager was either suffering from lockjaw, or he must’ve frantically masticated his way through his entire stock of chewing gum. Each additional Arsenal goal also resulted in another crease in the furrowed brow of Ronald Koeman, the AZ Alkmaar manager, as he scouted his next Champions League opponents. It’s no wonder, as the Gunners might want for a 30-goal a season striker, but we’re becoming an increasingly formidable proposition.

Even if it’s possible to nullify all five of our attacking goal threats, our new centre-back will slay you with a stonking sucker punch.