After the debacle last week against Bradford an immediate response was required. The wait until Monday has seemed a long one, the memory of Bradford has lingered and Arsenal fans have been in direct need of something else to talk about.

Last night Arsenal decided to remind the fans that they can play the beautiful stuff, in recent weeks the performances have been flat and uninspiring. They managed to put in a performance of quality passing and almost completely ruthless finishing. In the first half the chances came on a regular basis and if not for the keeper the score line at half time would have been greater than the three we managed.

I’m not going to get this twisted, this was a meeting of two teams in poor form and a win was far from guaranteed for us. It required the Arsenal players to show the gulf in quality available and they clearly showed that. This is only Reading though and there is still a long long way before Arsenal fans will be convinced that we have turned a corner. Inconsistency is rife for Arsenal this season and the important thing is that the same level of focus and performance are there against Wigan.

I still believe signings are required in the January window but for now players are playing for their places and taking the opportunity to give Arsene food for thought. Arsenal fans will not accept any more failings in this team and Arsene’s future is in the hands of his players. They need to play for him and put in more performances like last night.

It really has seemed a long time since we have played like that, even longer since we have played like that consistently in a run of games. I certainly hope this is the turning point, this Reading team at this current point in time were the best possible team to play to build confidence.

Even against a poor Reading team the defensive frailties were still evident, it would have been a good game to keep a clean sheet but that wasn’t to be. Mr individual error showed his ugly head again and it is still something we need to work on. Not trying to put a dampener on our performance but at 4-0 up complacency crept into our game and before you knew it two goals were conceded. It almost sparked memories of our Capital One Cup game against the royals. We wobbled for a while but thanks to a fifth goal from Theo who got his chance to play in his preferred central role; any chances of a complete meltdown were squashed.

Special mention of course goes to Santi Cazorla who was behind everything good about Arsenal last night. It was great to see him put aside all the negative press he received recently and put on a masterclass. He walked away with the match ball last night after scoring a hat trick in the match and proved how vital he is in our quest to turning around our fortunes.

I’m much happier after yesterday’s game compared to last week and I hope we can carry this on now. It’s just Reading so no running to pop any Champagne but we can only play who is put in front of us. Next up in front of us is Wigan and hopefully we can continue the consistency; the remaining December games are winnable in theory and so ending the year on a high will put us in good stead for 2013. Plenty of focus still required from the players, more of the same please at the weekend.

Enjoy your day people.

Please feel free to like the Facebook page for regular updates of the blog.