It was a fantastic goal that won it. With about 8 nerve-wracking minutes to go, Ashley Cole delivered an outswinging corner from the left (our 36th corner, or thereabouts, but most of them from that side had been inswingers from Pires). Thierry Henry ran from the edge of the box and rose above 2 defenders to power a perfect header down and up off the line into the net.

As we say so often here, it should have been over ages before that. Arsenal dominated the first half by a mile. But with Henry apparently determined to play on the wing (how many times did he go on a wide overlap when Pires or Ljungberg was bringing the ball forward, instead of making for the box?) all too often we didn't have men in the box.

Spartak played with a bit more purpose in the second half, waking to the possibility that a win would keep their hopes alive. And Arsenal got increasingly nervous, and increasingly dependent on the great defensive displays of Tony Adams and Lee Dixon.

When the inevitable attacking substitutions came, it was slightly surprising that Henry wasn't the striker to come off rather than Begrkamp. Not that Henry should have come off, of course, even if he didn't have a good game. But Bergkamp was playing a blinder. The singing of his name shortly after he came off was a message to Wenger (surely he has to let Dennis go to Munich, let's start Kanu on Saturday and give Den a rest). But once again the ooo noises as Kanu came on have been interpreted as boos. Maybe they were, from some. But not where I was.

We really needed something though, for a while Ljungberg seemed to be the only Arsenal player capable of movement. We started making chances again and the presence of Wiltord created a few good chances including the crucial corner.

The unfortunate truth is that Lyon deserved their win tonight, but Bayern played to a certain extent as if they thought they were through already. They left Scholl on the bench for example, until they were already 3 down. Next week, they'll know they can't afford to lose. And we can't afford not to win. Still, it's just like a normal cup tie really. And at our best, Arsenal can do it.

The good news is that Effenberg, who turned the game at Highbury, got himself booked at 3-0 down and 5 minutes to go last night, and is suspended for next week's game.

Note that Moscow matches kick-off early, because of the time difference and coldness. But we won't know what needs to be done before our match starts, as some Gunners seem to think. The Munich match has been brought forward to match. So our game next Wednesday kicks off at 6pm UK time (AFCi shows it as 5.55 actually). It's live on ITV in the UK. We'll build up a list of TV info for other countries here so send it in.

See previous item for more on the group situation, and match report page for full report and our list of links to reports on other sites.