O Ye of Little Faith!

There was more than a touch of gloom and doom about Arsenal’s prospects against Birmingham City on Jeff Stelling’s ‘Soccer Saturday’ – so much so that even former Gunners double-winning captain Frank McLintock reluctantly predicted a home win.

What more could you expect with such an inexperienced side – especially when it included a makeshift back four consisting entirely of youngsters and without a single specialist full back? Imagine them faced with the experienced Emil Heskey and Chris Sutton up front - not to mention Jermaine Pennant, desperate to prove Arsene Wenger wrong for letting him go, providing the ammunition from the right and the dangerous Jiri Jarosik lurking on the left. In front of them, a midfield including young Diaby, with barely a couple of weeks in this country, and alongside Thierry Henry, the relatively unknown and untried Adebayor, fresh(?) from the African Cup of Nations.

As it turned out, they did more than cope. They survived the aerial bombardment in a way that demonstrated both the stature of Jens Lehmann, who was superb, and the ability of the Arsenal spirit to reach and inspire even the young players. In midfield, the experience of Gilberto, the vision of Fabregas and a remarkable contribution from Abou Diaby, who is already attracting comparisons with Partick Vieira, provided a sound foundation for some characteristic Arsenal attacking play. And up front, there was a debut goal from Adebayor and a thundering left foot strike that gave the charismatic Thierry Henry his 200th career goal for the Gunners.

Not a bad way to answer the critics.