The most important thing for Arsenal today was to get the win and the three points we needed to get our Premier League title challenge back on track and keep pace with the pace setters Man City, Liverpool and Chelsea who all won yesterday.
All of our rivals were pushed hard and that proved to be the case today, although I reckon a big factor in that was the poor penalty decision the ref gave against Nacho Monreal. We were ahead at that point after Alexis Sanchez pounced on a poor back pass but we were easily the better team as well.
After that dodgy pen though, Bournemouth were buoyant and for a long time the Gunners struggled, even after Theo Walcott headed us back in front from a great cross by Monreal. For large parts of the game it was Bournemouth on the front foot and we were hanging on a bit at the end until a late goal from Alexis thanks to great work by Giroud sealed the points.
THis was not a classic by any means but it was a game we had to win and did, no thanks to a rubbish ref. Now hopefully we will start to see the free flowing Arsenal again.
Bob.