I must admit I can’t help thinking sometimes that European football is a bit overrated. Two teams just trying to cancel each other out. Home sides terrified of giving up an away goal. Not always great entertainment.

The game at Prague might have gone a bit that way as well, but for one glorious moment that sent me to bed happy. It happened about halfway into the first half. A fairly hopeful ball was chased down by Hleb, who was beaten to it by the Czech goalkeeper. A fairly innocuous challenge. The keeper had a “Jens moment” and threw a little wobbly, as you would expect from any European goalie worth his salt. Alexander wandered off, a bit sheepish looking, and you would have thought that was that.

Only it wasn’t. At that precise moment, their number two came sauntering over looking like a cross between Julian Dicks and Herman Munster, with an armband. Yes, our old friend, and West Ham’s finest, Tomas Repka. Clearly, spending all that time in the East End has left Tomas thinking he is well ‘ard, because he decides to stick his ugly shaven head into the action. Apparently Hleb’s mum was a bricklayer, but I think it’s safe to say that the boy must have inherited his dad’s genes. In short, he’s a bit lightweight. However, give the boy his due, he stood his ground and even looked like he was going to give Repka a Glaswegian kiss.

It all blew over, but a couple of minutes later came the defining moment of the game, if not our entire season. A loose 50/50 ball was gone for, this time by Repka himself. It was obvious he had a little bit of blood in his adrenaline system, as his face was all red. Who was in line for this collision? None other than our very own Cesc Fabregas.

When I came out from behind the sofa and peered through my fingers, however, Cesc was up and jogging about, and that former piece of West Ham filth was rolling about in complete and utter agony. What joy! If this was Test Match Special, Aggers and Blowers would have made it their champagne moment. I’m beside myself. Unfortunately, he actually managed to get up, but after another couple of minutes, pulls up lame. Can this get any better? Not very politically correct, I know, but who cares? As he walks off the pitch, he points at Fab and mouths something. Whatever he said clearly didn’t bother Fabregas one little bit, as later on in the match he ran up the other end and scored, after a fine Clichy run (incidentally, put your hand up if you miss Ashley Cole).

Now Tomas Repka is 33 and Cesc looks like he’s just picked up his GCSE results, and is in the middle of a bit of work experience. He also weighs about 10 stone soaking wet. There are an endless number of stats collected during a football match these days. I doubt if there’s one which counts the number of times one of your players walks away from a perfectly fair challenge, while the player from the opposition is left on the ground, but perhaps there should be. After this performance Arsenal would be top of the league. A soft touch? Just a bunch of kids? Really?