One game, three points. Not a bad start for someone who, only 48 hours before the match, was polishing his boots while enjoying the warmth of the southern Spanish sun.

Then, after a frantic few hours during transfer deadline day, he found himself presented with one of the most daunting tasks in English football – defending against the singular style of Stoke.

Trying hard not to be Santos

He had a couple of Santos moments – for example, the right-footed shot which almost hit the corner flag, and a skewed clearance which went straight out for a throw.

But he also had a couple of Gibbs-like moments too – in particular, the one-two with Oxlade-Chamberlain which resulted in a beautifully measured cross which was cleared from off the top of Giroud’s head.

All-in-all, a great start for the player who looks destined to play an active role over coming weeks.

1-0 to the Arsenal

The game itself was generally not very newsworthy.

A deflected, and vaguely controversial, goal sealed the 3 points for the Gunners. The linesman raised his flag for off-side when he assumed that Podolski’s deflected shot had been tapped in via Giroud, who was in an off-side position.

But, following protests from even the most mild-mannered of Arsenal players (no doubt echoed by less mild shrieks from the terraces), the Referee over-ruled his assistant and helped seal the win.

Some hand-bags between Mikel Arteta and Michael Owen (you know the one; he once scored a couple of goals for the national side but now is a bit of a dinosaur) livened up the last 10 minutes.

And Ryan Shawcross, not to be outdone by anyone tried to pull a red-card stunt on Laurent Koscielny, but got away with a yellow-card. (It seems rather fitting that a minute or so later, Arsene saw fit to bring on Aaron Ramsey – who barely had time to draw breath before the final whistle, but no doubt enjoyed shaking hands with the defeated Shawcross.)

Spanish partnership

The game ended with all three of Arsenal’s relatively new Spanish threesome on the pitch: Arteta, who joined on deadline day at the end of August 2011; the new recruit Monreal, who joined his former Malaga team-mate Cazorla, who arrived in the Summer.

Cazorla and Monreal found each other with a series of neat interchanges on a few occasions – and including some neat passing moves with Podolski, who – like Cazorla – was a substitute with 15 minutes to go.

Before that, I thought that Oxlade-Chamberlain had had a very tidy game, and worked hard to support the new boy – chasing up and down the pitch in industrious fashion.

Multi-talented

The new guy seems to have a range of qualities in his game – defending, and moving forward, cutting inside, or racing down the wing - and he wasn’t afraid to shoot.

Not surprisingly, it took him a while to get into the game, and it was a good 7 or 8 minutes before he had a first touch – but his stats reflect how active he was: he had 78 touches, compared to Sagna’s 90 (by contrast, Koscielny had 40, and Arteta 128) and an 85% pass-success rate.

But it was his willingness to go forward which was most exciting – having had two shots – and, as indicated, his eager and willing interchanges with Podolski and Oxlade-Chamberlain.

Not a bad start for the boy they call Nacho.

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