After 18 domestic and European ties Arsenal failed to find the net for the first time this season, although they don’t concede any either and that is enough to guarantee progression to the serious business of knock-out European Cup competition. Wednesday night’s game was not easy on the eye, but if you offered Liverpool fans the chance to swap places with us they’d snap your hand off. Only in the last five minutes did the Gunners finally force a save out of their keeper and despite a great deal of perspiration Slavia Prague had the opportunity to (partially) atone for the seven goal drubbing they took two weeks ago and embarked on a lap of honour, which must have been nice for them.

Some pundits and hacks had a good moan about last night’s game and if you had the misfortune to sit through the whole thing, let alone travel across Central Europe to risk trench foot in the Czech Republic, you’d be forgiven for feeling aggrieved with Arsene’s tinkering. But can you really blame him for dropping players like Cesc, who have been slogging it out without any respite since August? Arsene has to field an Arsenal team twice each week until the New Year and by putting out a second string team he was making it clear that he wanted to reward the players who have set the Premiership alight so far this season by giving them a rare midweek off. He obviously took a calculated risk by leaving Cesc, Kolo, Hleb and Rosicky in London – although Cesc and Alex Hleb popped over to Barcelona to give the hacks at ‘Marca’ et al something to write about. If we stick three or four past Reading next Monday no-one will even remember last night’s match.

As for the game itself, I missed the first 25 minutes, somewhat serendipitously by the sounds of things and there were few positives to take from the remaining hour or so. I thought Diarra looked impressive again, although he’s clearly cut out for a midfield berth sooner or later. Eduardo and Bendtner looked somewhat out of position but you’d have to give them full marks for effort and hopefully a Champions League start will placate the gobby Dane for a few weeks. Denilson and Gilberto seemed assured in the middle and Clichy was his usual impeccable self. Perhaps the biggest disappointment was Theo’s performance, but it couldn’t have been easy to try and weave magical patterns in the midst of a monsoon. Almunia will have taken the most from the 90 minutes, making one excellent and ultimately crucial save.

As long as UEFA insist on milking the Champions League for every last drop of advertising revenue and sponsorship the odd stinker like last night’s game is inevitable. Arsene has a duty to ensure Arsenal Football Club are as competitive as possible in every competition that they participate in and that will invariably mean rotating players and accepting that for every sumptuous display of total football there has to be the odd show of dour and pragmatic tenacity. Let’s hope he got them dried off quickly and safely back home to Blighty. Roll on Monday.