Stuttgart, Bischoff, Adebayor, Bendtner

So Jens Lehmann conceeded 3 goals and Arsenal won... a strange looking statement huh... well the Wednesday night scoreline was typical of Arsenal. Conceed a goal through poor defensive work, but being too penetrative going forward to keep at bay.

It was Nasri's first performance for the Gunners and he looked bright and very mobile, whilst not trying anything too flashy o his debut. He played some good balls to Adebayor (who looked like he needs a good run out) and was unlucky not to play in RvP with a defense splitting pass. He also took on a half volley effort which swerved wide but was promising to see.

Bendtner, Vela, and Wilshere continued their rich vein of form by finishing off 3 well worked moves. Vela got the first after superbly being played in by Bendtner (for which I will go into more depth later) and knocked it past Lehmann to finish from a tight angle. Bendtner played a 1-2 with Vela, before powering through to finish neatly passed Lehmann, and Clichy pulled out a heroic run before dinking it across the box to Wilshere, whose finish was too powerful for Lehmann to get close to.

It was good to see the likes of Wilshere and Vela carrying on from Monday night, with both putting in impressive performances. Of course Wenger has been playing down Wilshere but you do wonder if he gets a chance as a sub, or even starts in the Carling Cup whether he might even make his league debut this season? Like they say, 'if you're good enough, you're old enough'.

We finally completed the signing of Bischoff, which he himself had reported around a month ago... bit of a random one on first impressions, he has only played something like 16 minutes competitive football for Werder Bremen, but has featured for Portugal under 21's, and played a lot for the Werder Bremen youth set up. The thing is though that he has already had 2 groin operations and had also been working as an office clerk!! Wenger believes he will need at least 2-3 months of training before he will be match fit... I guess its fairly similar to Baptista except Bischoff has more valid reasons than just being a fat bastard.

Adebayor is putting pen to paper on a new improved deal within the next few days which will put a 1/2 year extension on his existing deal taking his contract up to 4/5 years in length. In his interview with ATVO Adebayor insisted his love for the club, and really really insisted (about 20 times!) that he never said he would leave Arsenal... which in fairness he never did... I never commented too much on this saga because there really wasn't much substance to talk about in terms of Adebayor saying anything... he also still hopes that the fans will love him as before as he has signed a new deal and of course... he never said he would leave the club (Ade really drilled this point home).

And then of course our Great Dane, Niklas Bendtner. Now I like this kid a lot, he has a lot of attributes to his game, if he perfects them he could become the complete striker. We have seen him be powerful in the air, we know he has a good touch (when not rusty), he may not be Theo Walcott but he certainly isn't slow either. I mean considering his age Bendtner has potential for greatness. Now I do get pissed off with comparisons to ex-players or how we need an excat replacement for a player... e.g. Diaby the new Vieira, Walcott the new Henry, however I see a lot of Bergkamp in Bendtner. What I mean when I say that is that Bendtner can be a very profitable striker to play alongside, he can drag players with him and then play a killer ball. His assist for Vela's goal was so reminisecent of Bergkamp it was unreal! That little Dennis dink we became familiar with, it's a disguised pass because it's not expected, it's just a sudden dink, and it is extremely effective when pulled off. A player with Eduardo's movement will profit so much from playing alongside Bendtner. We really do have a royal flush when it comes to strikers. We can really mix it up and with our creative midfield I can't see us struggling to score in any way this season.
If Bendtner can look up more often and perfect when to release the ball I could really see him making a huge impact at Arsenal over the next few seasons, providing he is patient. He will be a better all round player than Adebayor and will get more goals than Bergkamp did, admittedly he isn't likely to score many screamers like Dennis because Bendtner is much more lethal inside the box. I think Bendtner will see a bit more playing time than last season, and he really has a chance before Eduardo recovers to make an impact during the first months of the season. He is most likely to be coming on from the bench but I am sure he will get one or two matches from the start... will be interesting to see how he takes his chances, and whether or not he can link up with Ade... watch this space!