At 7am yesterday morning I was on the train with my girlfriend. On days like this, I am pretty tense. Not yesterday. She was surprised to see me so relaxed. I was really convinced we were going to thump Porto for good. I can't just say why but I was feeling particularly positive about Nick Bendtner. He's always been one of my favourites, even when he's really crap, because I see in him the typical English-style centre-forward, tall, powerful and moderately skilled in technique. Last year I even wrote a piece on the website about him.

On Saturday, I watched us beat Burnley with my girl and she clearly saw Nick missing sitters and declared he was a complete idiot, incapable of doing the simplest of things. I could tell her she was wrong, on that particular day! I saw Bendtner full of a new kind of confidence, I had never seen him with such a broad a smile after missing easy shots on target like those ones (he usually shrugs and mumbles some incomprehensible words while running away looking at the grass). I thought, the guy's relaxed, he knows this is his occasion, he's being played in his position and now that Eduardo is actually nailed to the bench, his position is stronger than ever.

And last night, even though Porto were really sh**e, he showed what I meant. Apart from the Champions League, which we won't win unless Barcelona, Inter, the Chavs, Manure and all the others commit suicide, this is really positive for our Premier League run. As the editor has repeatedly said in the podcast and here on the website, we don't have an easy string of matches, but of course, we are capable of winning each of the nine remaining ones. Two or three weeks ago Wenger said, while justifying to the press his decision not to buy a striker (and that could prove crucial), that it was up to Bendtner to provide the goals that would eventually win us the league.

Maybe, that's starting to become true. At places like Hull, Spurs and Wigan, his physical presence, power and (why not?) goals could prove vital in an injury prone season, where we've never really had a striker to rely upon (even though we've had Cesc scoring a lot). This is maybe the real start of Nick's career. In a short period of time, I'm sure we won't see any missed sitters.