Gooners who don’t like Emmanuel Eboue will now not have to watch him for a good few weeks but had he not left his foot in on John Terry, Arsenal now would be wondering how many months Cesc or Helb would be missing.

The Chelsea skipper’s tackle on Cesc would have seen him dismissed immediately in any other country in the world so why didn’t Wiley just red card him? In hindsight, it would have been for his own good.

Make no mistake, had Terry lasted 90 minutes we would be left with some real team selection problems over the next few months. Many of us have commented about what we dislike in English players and in Terry you have the lot. He was clearly going to put someone out of football and our Spanish genius was firmly in his sights. England captain? Don’t make me laugh.

Regarding the game my main feelings are we made hard work of beating a below-strength, one-paced Chelsea team that only created a handful of chances. At 1-0 up I really fancied us on the break to win by two or three goals and with a fully match fit Cesc and RVP we would have completed the game at a canter.

However the moment I really enjoyed was seeing Gael receive his Man of the Match award and accepting his bubbly in a more articulate manner in his second language than his predecessor could ever manage in his only tongue. It spoke volumes.