The trouble with Sunday kick-offs is that they do interfere with your Saturday nights.

For normal civilised kick-offs (increasingly rare these days) I usually meet my Dad for lunch before the game and then we go to the match together. But today he'd insisted that we meet for breakfast in a greasy spoon. Traditional, he called it. Unhygienic, I call it. But anyway, here I was, running for the bus somewhere in south London in a major panic that I wouldn't have time for a plate of bacon and e-coli. (You try running for a bus in a pair of Dancing Choo's).

By the way, I ought to mention that I'm neither a bus person nor a south London person. Saturday nights at Embargo always being a bit of a giggle - good cheesy music, copious quantities of vodka and on this occasion a particularly sweet Fitbloke - I wake up with aforementioned Fitbloke and a raging hangover somewhere closer to Brighton than Islington.

Now at this point, if this was a reverse fixture, I'd get very pissed off if Fitbloke just makes his excuses and legs it - but I'm a girl in a hurry. To my horror, he suddenly starts Making Plans for the day! There's a lovely little bistro round the corner, apparently, where we can have breakfast and read the papers. Thinking quickly, I tell him that I'm meeting my Dad for brunch (which I am) and that he's invited (which he is not) as it would be so lovely for the two of them to meet. This does the trick, obviously, as he suddenly remembers an important breakfast meeting (on a Sunday?) and chucks me out of his flat, so off I clatter to try chasing after long red bendy things.

Anyway, I get to the cafe so late I don't have time for anything more than a gulp of tea (probably no bad thing) and my dad is in a grumpy mood for keeping him waiting. Still, it's a niceish day quite warm for October, and as we march off down towards Dubaibury we start debating whether Sunderland will be a walkover a la Derby or more of a resilient, determined side. We both agreed probably the latter, knowing Roy Keane.

We got to our seats only a couple of minutes late, just in time to catch the opening flurry of goals. Now, I'm not going to give you a blow-by-blow account of what happened every game because 1. you lot will watch most of the games yourselves anyway on TV or a dodgy satellite weblink, 2. there are loads of match reports out there, and 3. I'm crap at remembering things.

It was a fantastic start by the boys, we scored four goals in the first 20 minutes. Unfortunately only two of them counted. Stiles clearly whistled for a foul before Diaby's great strike, but RVP's resultant free kick was even better, so no harm done. By the way, I thought Stiles had a decent game, no outstandingly bad decisions and he did well to give the straight red at the end. (memo to the bloke who sits behind me: please stop your constant 90 minute moans at the referee every week, it's very boring. He has this curious moral code that nobody should ever say a bad word about any Arsenal player, ever. Even mad German Goalkeepers. So instead he takes his frustrations out on the ref and yelps very loudly and very indignantly at every decision he does or doesn't make. I'm all for encouraging the boys instead of getting on their backs, and I would never, ever boo and Arsenal player, but this is ridiculous in the extreme.)

It wasn't Stiles who ruled out our fourth goal, it was the linesman. I haven't seen the replays, but I'm told it was a perfectly good goal - as I thought so at the time. I didn't spot the assistant's flag at first, and both my dad and I thought it has been disallowed for a push by Flamini. (By the by, why does everyone in the crowd insist on giving the players Anglicised nicknames? I seriously doubt any of his team mates call him Matty Flamini. And I don't recall Thierry ever shouting to Pires, "on me 'ead, Bobby.")

Anyway, that would have been 3-0 and the game done and dusted. Our pre-match prediction of Sunderland resilience was looking a little thin at this point, but you probably all know what happened next. We take our foot off the pedal, play very sloppily and let them right back into it. When Kolo did a Cruyff turn right in front of us deep in the Sunderland half, I was purring with delight. But in retrospect, it should have been a warning.

Credit to Roy Keane. All the best managers are able to craft their sides as a reflection of their own personality. On this evidence, Keane will be one to watch. Sure, he might be a nasty piece of work (ask Haarland) and he's certainly not short of an ego or three (ask McCarthy) but you can't help but admire the way he played football. Even for a biased Goonergirl like myself.

Random thoughts on our defence:

Clichy has been one of our best players over the last year (Ashley who?). Sagna looks weird now and should regrow his hair. I really want to see our new Polish goalkeeper. Gallas is a better player than Senderos, but Kolo/Senderos is a better partnership than Kolo/Gallas. Kolo looks much happier playing with Big Phil for some reason. Because he looks ungainly and because he hasn't yet cut out the mistakes from his game, Philippe is often thought of as a bit of a donkey. But people forget he was at the heart of our defensive record in the CL on our way to Paris (ahh Paree!).

However, having said all that, our defence had a bit of a 'mare for the first time this season. Clichy got caught on the long diagonal ball for the first time in a long time. He used to be very vulnerable to that and I remember Pat Rice having to coach him very loudly from the touchline all the way through his first few games. Let's hope this relapse was just a one-time lapse in concentration, but he's been so brilliant for us for a while now so we'll say no more about it for the moment.

Random thoughts on our midfield:

Diaby is a goodish player (though not as good as Denilson in my inexpert opinion) but looks unhappy on the left. Flamini fully deserves to be keeping even Gilberto out of the side. (If Ray Parlour was our Pele from Romford, Flamini is our Maradonna from Marseilles.) Hleb finally looks like a player, so I've stopped calling him Pleb. Cescalicious looks a tad tired, poor lad. Maybe Le Directeur should give him some time off to recharge his batteries. I noticed that he didn't boss the game at Upton Park in the same way that he has been doing all season. I put it down to the fact that it was a difficult away game against one of our bogey teams, but once Sunderland came back at us he faded a little bit again. We can't expect miracles from him every game (though we can hope) but he's such an important player for us, the question is how best to keep him on the boil for as long as possible.

Random thoughts on Theoooo Walcott:

He's clearly got something. Not quite sure what yet, or how much of it. He plays better as a substitute than as a starter. His final ball is improving. It needed to. Lovely balance. His pace is vital to the team. After we scored our disallowed goal, Sunderland's back line pushed up a long way to compress the play which made life much more difficult for us. We didn't have the pace to get behind them until Theoooo came on.

RVP's second goal, when it came, was worth waiting for. Good goal from a class striker after great work from Theoooo. In a reverse of the Cescaliscious situation, RVP seems to be coming into some form after a good pre-season, but a quiet start to the premiership (he didn't turn up at Shite Hart Lane at all.) We have so many match winners in the squad now, it's good that they're sharing the responsibility around a bit - when Ade is quiet, RVP is banging them in and vice versa.

Pardoxically, I think our second half struggle will stand us in better stead for the rest of the season than if we'd simply steamrollered Sunderland. They know now that when things get a bit sticky and the free flowing beautiful game starts misfiring (as it inevitably will at some stage) they have the resources to come through. I'm still worried how we'll react to our first defeat of the season and it will be vital that we cope with it better than our 49ers did to their eventual demise at Cold Trafford.

Still, mustn't be too pessimistic, eh? Two points clear with a game in hand and only Mad Jens throwing one in at Blackburn to mar an otherwise perfect start to the season.

And, even better, the next match is a 3pm Saturday kick off.