That was Sparta, but Repka is no King Leonidas.

The banner in Prague proclaimed ‘This is Sparta’, and while most of us laughed, the Spartans (of Prague admittedly) did make a concerted attempt to rough up our youngsters. Yet if Repka was their captain, or their king if we continue to follow this prolonged metaphor, he was hardly a Leonidas. And if he was, then Cesc was his Persian assassin. Ultimately we came out victorious in the physicality stakes in a tough game, something which was obviously great to see and which is a notable change from last season.

Credit to the players: not only have they come through another tough test, they did so with almost flying colours.

I’d love to say I’d seen more of the game, but thus far I’ve only seen the goals and some sporadic highlights, on top of the radio commentary. The reason? Setanta. It seems that to ensure a fair market place for the viewing of English football teams, the consumer, ultimately, must have to pay more.

So on top of the season ticket, the Sky subscription, and the Sky PPV matches, we now have Setanta scraping the last few remnants of change we have from our pockets. It’s nice to see that the British government have attempted to break up Sky’s monopoly on football –but how does that benefit the average football viewer? Not a lot, it would seem. Bring back the Stalinist monopoly I say.

The goals both came from surging runs from our full-backs. Clichy seems to be making goal-creating runs with wonderful alacrity at the moment, while Sagna has swiftly made a notably positive impact on the side. Cesc showed that he has the potential to contribute heavily to our goalscoring, while Hleb seems transformed in front of goal. Whether he can continue to play in a position which seems to isolate RvP remains to be seen, but hopefully the end product to his play will start to win over a few more of his doubters.

Jens showed his worth with a number of top-class saves, and Gallas had one of his best games in the shirt. A player who didn’t was Tomas Rosicky, and questions over his role in the team should surely start to be asked if he continues in this poor vein of form.

To be frank, I wondered where he would fit into the team when we bought him. He’s a central midfielder, a half-striker even, and Wenger is quite clearly wasting him out on the left. He doesn’t have the ability to cut open defences that Hleb has, and his goalscoring record remains average, at best. He really needs to step up a gear or two and quick.

Alex Song also seemed to give the ball away without almost deadly inefficiency once he entered the fray. He does have his backers, and I’ve tried to like the lad, but maybe Charlton was his level. He’s only ever looked out of his depth when I’ve seen him play for us.

We’re obviously not through yet, but being two away goals to the good sets up the second leg nicely. If that’s the new Sparta, the sequel won’t be coming out soon.