My old mate Brian Dawes caught me after the Carling Cup win over Newcastle and his first words were, “We don’t need to buy another player for ten years”

Maybe a slight exaggeration there. But it captured the mood of the night. Newcastle were not significantly understrength and yet Arsenal not only matched them but often dominated for 80 minutes and kept going until the end as the visitors faded.

Sam Allardyce complained of having to play on Sunday and Tuesday, but if he was so worried, why didn’t he use more back up players as Arsene Wenger did? Possibly because the Toon’s reserves they have not benefited from the kind of coaching they might have received had they been at London Colney?

You could argue that is a bit harsh on the newly-arrived Allardyce, but I don’t have memories of Bolton’s youth policy providing much fruit and Fat Sam was there long enough.

But let’s concentrate on Arsenal. The defence performed admirably considering the experience of the opposition forwards. Martins has played Champions League football regularly for Inter and Ameobi’s been a Premiership regular for a long time. Sure, there were occasional errors, but no more than seen in the normal line-up. Traore and Hoyte both supported the attack in the way we’ve become accustomed to seeing Clichy and Sagna do.

Song and Senderos in the centre is not only a tongue twister but a recipe for mishaps. However, it would be harsh to criticise either on their performance last night. Not perfect, but certainly not worrying. God only knows why Senderos played better than he seems to alongside Toure of late. Maybe the captain’s armband has some kind of miraculous effect. Arsene Wenger made a point in the match programme of mentioning the stick Alexandre Song took at Fulham away last season and asked us not to misjudge him. He certainly looked a better player at centre back then he does in central midfield, where he seems to be indecisive and plays some bad passes. In possession, the job of a centre back is basically to offload the responsibility for an imaginative pass to a midfield player. Just keep it simple. Maybe if Song remains in the position, he will be able to concentrate on and master the simple stuff and improve his standing in the eyes of the fans.

The midfield was outstanding, with even a couple of telling moments from Theo Walcott (although in truth, I think it can now be said that Theo does not have a football brain and will not turn out to be the talent we had all hoped). Eboue, Denilson and especially Diarra were brilliant and really took the game to the opposition. Diarra combined both the defensive abilities of Gilberto with some quality interplay. He covers a lot of ground and it just shows how the excesses of money Chelsea throw around to deny other teams buying good players is bad for the game. A philosophy that goes – we will buy him so you can’t even though we will not be able to play this guy where he’s best or very often at all for that matter.

I would be astounded if Mathieu Flamini can keep both Diarra and Gilberto out of the team. Diarra does exactly what Flamini does but is much, much better at it. I can see the exit door opening for Gilberto though – partly due to age and partly because Diarra looks like he is an obvious replacement.

Up front Bendtner took a long time to really impress me, but there is no denying the quality of his goal. Arsenal do need to add height to their game in attack, and with Adebayor, Eduardo and Bendtner all happy to use their heads this is an encouraging development. Eduardo tried manfully, but ran into a lot of brick walls. He will take a season to fully bed in, but both he and Bendtner are good options from the bench.

It does appear this season that Arsenal’s real attacking threat is the midfield players. The forwards are there to make life awkward, but ultimately it is the movement and unpredictability of the three attacking midfielders that is creating the majority of the goals this season. It’s interesting that this balance has shifted since Thierry Henry’s departure, and much as we all owe the player for his contribution to the club, I kind of think that Arsene Wenger is being diplomatic in his statement that he didn’t want Henry to go in the summer, and I am inclined to think he would not have let him depart if he didn’t want him to go.

Last season Arsenal were like a temperamental car engine. Promising a smooth ride, but stuttering and stalling. This season, it’s running a lot better. The confidence of the first team’s play and ability to get results has transmitted throughout the squad and neutrals are backing Arsenal amongst the big four partly due to their style of play but also due to the way that the team has been built. Arsenal’s method gives hope to others that, if you get the right coach and your scouting is good enough, you can achieve great things.

Problem is, how many coaches are there like Arsene Wenger?

To finish, excerpts from an email on the game sent to me by regular contributor Adrian Wagenaar

Song was really solid (remember he also had to help poor Philip) but Diarra was a revelation. I had heard he was a long term replacement for Gilberto but surely he will get a game in the next few weeks. He never wasted a ball and his close control in tight areas was superb. He was the heartbeat for the team and this was his first full run out!

I thought Martins was a danger all night and can you imagine the chances he would get playing for us? You can add to your “Watch out in the last ten minutes” portfolio last night’s game, last year Araldite (That’s Sam Allardyce for the confused – Ed) would have got away with that but now we just keep going. As we were at the “blue end” we saw the goals and some last gasp lunges and a couple of brilliant saves from Given, however the team still switched off and Martins could have scored but for Senderos.

Newcastle were p*ss poor and only got into the game because of Swiss Tony’s mistakes and I fear for us away from home. Still Arsene knows best and I think Chelsea have just lost an absolute diamond in Diarra.