Two games, two victories and two HLEB

Sparta Prague 0-2 (0-0) Arsenal : CL 3rd preliminary first leg

A very physical game, saw the new arsenal goalscorer Goaleksander Hleb is the name, netting his second goal in a row again during injury time. This game started slowly but was marred with strong tacles from the Tcheque players, really send-off offences. But luckily this is not last season and our boys are ready for the fight. And when Cesc gave back to Repka as hard as he was giving, the latter was off and to make matter more delicious, the young lad went on to open the score with a great finish after a great play from Clichy. I said it before we are finally getting the ball back from the opponents own half and that was the source of the opener. Clichy stole the ball some yards outside the Sparta penalty box, escaped a couple of challenges beautifully before setting up Fabregas who took it superbly. Then in the dying seconds from a sparta corner Lehman released Bakary on his wrong side, the frenchman sprinted up the field, set up Hleb who trumped the sparta back with a lovely touch. Two very good goals: one with a short building and the other with a devasting counter I say good start for the "another transition season".


Arsenal 2-1 (0-1) Fulham : Premierleague opening day

A Lehman gaff 50 seconds from kick off gave Fulham the lead against us at the Emirates stadium but a hard fighting arsenal side stole all three points when Alexander Hleb netted in the 91st minute to seal victory for the gunners. Arsène started as I expected with the 4-4-1-1 formation having Hleb in the hole. The game was bizzare because of the clumsy start but we are just supposed to be too good to Fulham at home though if the other fixtures can reveal something it is that this season will be a hard long one for everybody because there are lots of improvements in all sides.
Back to the fulham game, after conceeding before the minute mark we created as usual bags of chances and at that moment it was very difficult not to think : different season same old arsenal with Rosicky, Hleb, Fabregas and even the good finisher Robin failing to convert clear cut chances and referee waving away clear penalties. But I remember Wenger pointing he wants more attacking impacts from the center backs and honestly at that time I was thinking that more defensive impact from the CBs should be issued but how was I glad to see Kolo busting a forward run that finished with Bocanegro bringing him down in the penalty for Robin to almost tear the net for the equaliser! And then Hleb finished in a lovely manner a Cesc Fabregas pass with a subblime strike for an opning 3 vital points.
So we started with a 4-4-1-1 formation, conceeded very early through a stupidity, did settle fairly then revert to 4-4-2 with about 20 minutes to go and scored twice to seal the victory.