We won’t know how good a result last night’s 1-0 victory over Roma was until the second leg has been played. Arsenal beat Bayern Munich 1-0 in 2005 at home, but were still eliminated – despite scoring an away goal. Yet 1-0 against Villarreal a year later was good enough to put them in the final. So every tie is unique. No-one that progresses is haunted by missed opportunities. They don’t matter as long as you go through.

But if you exit, you don’t quickly forget chances like Henry’s one on one with the Valencia keeper at Highbury shortly after Ray Parlour’s rocket made the stadium erupt to take the score to 2-1. Let us hope we can quickly forget the misses of Bendtner and Eboue in the second half.

There is little to be gained by castigating the players here. We know they are not of the requisite quality. There is an argument you can make for sticking Bendtner on as some kind of a lanky joker (in the ‘Jeux Sans Frontiers’ sense of the word) with 15 minutes to go when the team simply need more targets in the box for lumped balls. But ultimately, the pair are squad players who shouldn’t be let anywhere near the first team and are only there because of injuries to others. Under different circumstances, there is every chance Bendtner would have been sold by now with Eboue enjoying a similar Arsenal career to that of Junichi Inamoto, Alberto Mendez or Stefan Malz.

When the pressure moments come, retaining composure and doing what you are supposed to be capable of makes the difference between trophies and failure. The big names are not immune. Thierry Henry missed other key chances, not least in Paris in 2006. The current Arsenal team is similar in the sense that it has developed a defensive resilience at the same time of the season, although the quality in front of the back four is lesser.

Still, the actual performance against Roma was highly encouraging, so much so that fans might feel cheated having witnessed some of the uncommitted dross served up lately. It was a very different Arsenal with all of the players contributing, at least forcing a number of excellent openings even if they were ultimately not converted. Someone phoned to say the penalty was stonebonk and Mexes should have been sent off. It looked convincing, but having seen it on the box since, I don’t think it would have been awarded to the Gunners in Rome. Still, European football often turns on such decisions, not least at Anfield, so it was nice to actually get a penalty whether it should have been awarded or not.

On the matter of officiating, I haven’t yet read whether Arsenal plan to appeal Toure’s yellow card but the first task of the ref before the second half starts is to do a headcount. How cruel it would be if Toure had to miss a key game later on, should Arsenal progress, all because of Mr Larsen’s incompetence.

The one thing that came out of the match was that Arsenal fans can feel confident in the team’s ability to score a goal in the second leg. That won’t guarantee qualification, but it sure would improve the chances significantly. A 0-0 was enough to take to Milan at the same time last year and progress. And Lyon, Inter and Atletico Madrid would all have swapped their home results for Arsenal’s.

It’s now a matter of the returning players. Diaby made a hell of a difference in midfield compared with the pedestrian Song. Eduardo has already shown that he remembers how to score. Adebayor should be able to lift his game for Europe even if he can’t be bothered against most domestic opposition. How long before Fabregas and Walcott can return to the fray?

The Gunners are in two cups. The league might not be a lost cause (in terms of the chase for fourth) if some momentum can be established. Fulham on Saturday will tell us whether the players’ minds are solely focused on two finals in May. They certainly seem to have been elsewhere lately. Wenger needs the injured players to return, he needs Villa to hit a rocky patch and he needs some luck.

It seems ridiculous to talk about the possibility of Arsenal winning something given the poverty of so many performances this campaign, but that’s football. A certain team stunk out the Nou Camp on 26th May 1999, but won the game. It is regarded as one of their finest hours by their supporters. Anything’s possible…