Before
I've just passed the Emirates Stadium on a Grand Central train heading northwards for today's match and the mood is numb but buoyant. I don't really want to know who's playing for Arsenal today as I know they'll all be great and that their team's on fire and slamming in a load of goals. Chamakh, who turned us down in favour of Arsenal and who will no doubt be greeted accordingly, has been in great form as has Jack Wilshere and they'll be two to watch in particular. It looks like we'll be without Mensah, which if it's not a bit of kiddology will be a big blow, but to his credit Ferdinand has shown us what he's capable of recently and if he can reproduce his form in the Man City game, he'll go a long way to filling the gap. We surprised ourselves by winning this game last year and to win again today would be amazing but I'd be fairly happy with a point as I think we can really get something against Liverpool next week. Match prediction: 1-1.

After
I'm sitting in the Chesters buzzing after another fantastic climax to a home game. Having said that the goal against Man City was my most joyous moment at a game for years, I think when Bent smashed in our equalizer in the last minute of stoppage time today it was even sweeter. This was a great match anyway and we showed that our battling and skilful performance against City was no flash in the pan. We went behind in the thirteenth minute to what will surely be the weirdest goal Fabregas is ever credited with when Ferdinand blasted a back-pass from outside our box but he left it a little late and it cannoned off Fabregas and looped past Mignolet, who was well off his line and no doubt expecting anything but a shot to save. We'd had the better of it till that point and I think we continued to do so for the first half. We were unlucky not to get a penalty as the half-hour mark approached when Bent went down in a very non-diving manner but we didn't get a sniff from referee Dowd. With a quarter of an hour to go in the second-half Arsenal were awarded a very soft penalty but justice was done when Rosicky skied it. Arsenal were down to ten men ten minutes into the second-half when Song got his second yellow card but they started to play better and at times they carved through hour defence very disturbingly. Both sides had loads of chances with Arsenal guilty of some bad misses, thankfully. I was very impressed by our attacking play with Steed and Al Muhammadi repeatedly getting to the line and putting crosses in while Henderson and Welbeck also did a lot of tricky stuff.

We also defended well on the whole and Bramble in particular played very well while Ferdinand didn't let his blooper for the goal spoil the rest of his performance and put in another good show. Maybe Mignolet was also partly culpable for the goal but he made a couple of crucial saves that kept it down to 0-1. On the negative side we didn't do much at all with the large numbers of corners we won and ditto for free-kicks. Anyway, our equalizer did in fact eventually result from a corner after the ball had ricocheted about a lot in the Arsenal box. Their defence for once looked panicky and it came out to the right where Benty was waiting to crack it home. All around me was joyous bedlam and when we could find our voices we said it felt like a win. My pal has just asked me if I want another pint but as I've hardly touched the one by my side while writing this, I had to decline. So, I'll stop now and get on with some celebration. Bring on Liverpool – I really think we can get at least a draw against them.

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