PSV Eindhoven vs Arsenal - Philips Stadion, Eindhoven, Netherlands - Tuesday 20th February 2007

This game saw Arsenal's third visit to what must be the Netherlands' most uninspiring town of all - and that in a country which has its share of dull places. This was amongst the "easiest" of Champions' League draws that Arsenal could have had, so generally there was good optimism amongst the travelling Gooners. Coming on Shrove Tuesday too, we walked into a Mardi Gras festival in the middle of Eindhoven, which further added to the party atmosphere.

Once inside the ground, we took our places in the away section, hemmed in as is usual in these places, by a bloody great net that did a decent job of blocking the view. Considering we were about 3 miles from the pitch, in the top corner, I'm not sure what it was there to do - you would have needed to be an Olympic champion to have thrown anything onto the pitch.

The teams came out, and Arsenal started the game at a great pace - creating a number of interesting chances in the first half. PSV did not really look to be at the races, they were creating nothing, and only Arsenal's failure to finish the chances they were creating, seemed to be keeping them in the game. 0-0 at half time, the general feeling was that we were well in control, and would comfortably wrap the tie up in the second half.

Then something strange happened. A different Arsenal emerged for the second half - one that gave the ball away all the time, passed to the opposition, and barely ventured forward to create anything, even when they did have the ball. Unfortunately, a different PSV also emerged, one that had found some boldness from somewhere, and were no longer afraid to attack us. A long range shot went in after around an hour, and it was all uphill from there.

For the rest of the game, Arsenal played like a European away game of old - in other words, badly. Couldn't keep the ball, couldn't create good passing moves or chances, and didn't seem interested. The pinnacle of this came at the final whistle - as soon as it went, the Arsenal players disappeared down the tunnel as fast as they could, with no acknowledgement of the travelling fans. Very poor.

So, we have it all to do in the second leg at home in 2 weeks. I don't doubt that Arsenal are quite capable of scoring twice against that PSV team - the bigger problem is that if we concede one, it spells big trouble indeed. We will have to play better than that, if we want to get through a tie that we really should be comfortably winning.