Arsenal did just enough against a somewhat unadventurous Oxford side who deserved the applause of the Arsenal fans at the end for their spirit in defence, but never really made a game of it. Ok they're only in the 3rd division, but you'd have hoped they'd go for it a bit more towards the end, and leave themselves open for a proper battering.

I only remember one moment of worry, when a header was placed straight at Seaman from 8 yards out. I think that was in the second half, while it was still 1-0.

Arsenal started with a less-than-Premiership eleven, but considerably stronger than a League Cup side.

           Seaman
Luzhny Keown Upson vanBronckhorst
    Toure Edu Svard  Pires 
       Jeffers Bergkamp

Jeffers missed a few chances including a one-on-one which he played straight at the keeper (poor) and a glancing header which just missed the far post (unlucky). But he also created the opener for Bergkamp with nice control on the edge of the area followed by a forward pass for Bergkamp to latch onto and clip past the keeper. Jeffers role was reminiscent of Bergkamp himself, and the goal overall looked like one of those Dennis-Freddie combinations from last season. It wasn't the best Bergkamp goal ever, but was celebrated as enthusastically as any, being his 100th goal for the club.

That one came on 15 minutes, and we had to wait till 20 minutes from the end for the second. This time a corner was flicked across the face of goal and turned in by a defender. Quite unnecessarily too, as there wasn't a red shirt attacking it. That was the story of the game really, with decent crossing from Toure and van Bronckhorst rarely finding anyone in the right place (why did no-one attack the far post, ever?). Our corners were consistently rubbish too, so it was nice of Oxford to score from one of them for us.

The main point of interest, once the win was sure (and it didn;t take long for us to relax - Oxford really weren't very adventurous) was to see how the youngsters did. Svard looked like Gilberto, and played a little like him too. We'd all like to have seen a bit more of Bentley though because he was obviously fired up to show that we could have a Rooney on our hands. Nice skills and control, and a couple of good shots on the end of it too. We're looking forward to seeing more of him.

Jeffers didn't disgrace himself, unless you believe the moaners sat behind me in the North Bank. But they were moaning about everyone and everything.... like having a go at Bergkamp for trying something clever at 2-0 up (just think what we'd have missed out on over the years if he never tried that stuff!). But he certainly didn't prove anything either. I imagine he'll be disappointed not to have scored, given the number of chances he was given.

Toure had a good game and Upson, who I most wanted to see, had very little to do defensively but made some good contributions going forward.

Biggest shocks of the round were Everton losing at Shrewsbury, and Tottenham keeping Southampton down to single figures. What kind of drugs is Strachan giving those Saints this season?