The Bendtner love in this morning is symptomatic of the reactionary journalism we’ve grown accustomed to, ever so ready to jump on a bandwagon, no regard for a little research, quick to come to sweeping conclusions after a single independent event. Last night’s win against Porto was a vindication of Wenger’s belief in his players and a victory for wengerball, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Bendtner and Eboue, brought together by trials, tribulations, and redemption.

It would have been nothing short of a travesty had Arsenal not had the ablility to overturn a 2-1 lead against a Porto side whom we practically gifted thoses 2 goals in the first leg and whose English travels have by and large been hopeless. Still the manner of victory was one that will be remembered not for the paucity of Porto’s game, but for the virtuosity of Arsenal’s. Any team would have struggled to hold their own against Arsenal, such was the exemplary football they produced last night.

So where do we go from here? Was last night’s display a solitary event a one-off, or is it the culmination of a patient struggle to nurture a group of youngsters into a finely tuned footballing machine? The answer as always lies somewhere inbetween.

Wenger this unwavering faith in his judgement of talent, something which is used against him in certain situations. The fact is he is not clairvoyant, there will always be players that doesn’t make the grade. However he is in a much better position to judge the qualities of any player — and much better at it — than any of us.

Think of how many players on the pitch last night that we’ve thought at one point or another was not good enough for Arsenal, even Nasri was written off as a waste of money by many of us. Yet again we see that the footballing ability is clearly there, what the team need is the consistency to put it into action on a regular basis. And that comes with time.

Sometimes it easy to look over the fence and bemoan what is on our side. We look at Rooney and say why Walcott isn’t at his level, we look at Messi and say why we don’t have a player like that. When we do this we are forgetting that truly world class players don’t grow on trees, they are a rare breed and it’s luck, money, or time that allows you to possess these stars.

One of those with time on their side is Bendtner. Derided by many after his showing against Burnley, celebrated by just as many after last night. He’s one of those player that we think we have to make do with but we don’t really have faith in is abilities. At 22 Bendtner is better than many of those we regard today as “world class” when they were his age.

At 22 Drogba was playing at Le-Mans in Ligue 2, no where close to Champions league, premier league or National team, it wasn’t until the age of 24 that Drogba start showing signs of being the player he is today. Henry was considered a failure at Juventus before joining us and even then we were quick to judge him when he didn’t have a flying start.

Take a look at the big picture. Our current team is performing way ahead of their schedule, they are still growing physically and mentally. Even if we end up not winning anything, this season has been a very positive one. Let’s not be too quick to write off our boys after a bad performance, and at the token let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves after a good performance.

Achieving our goal of world domination will come in a series of baby steps, there will be setbacks along the way and we will get over those hurdles as we’ve already shown. When we do reach that goal it will be that much sweeter. I have no doubt that we will dominate the world of football in the very near future, just be patient.