By Avenell Dave

I made a fatal mistake last night.

I said to my neighbour "There's only one team going to win this now" in reference to Arsenal.

Within a couple of minutes, Dortmund had broken, the full backs were caught upfield and we had lost the game.

Arsene Wenger was, of course, correct when he said that we were naive to push for a winner when a point would have been a fair result.

Despite the minor Twitter meltdown, my biggest fear, or should I say irritation, was the fact that the media would use this as a stick to beat us with.

All that I read this morning said the same - the same old errors were shown the first time we came up against top class opposition and it is far more of a benchmark of where we are than the easy start to the season we have otherwise had.

I cannot agree. Napoli are second in Serie A for good reason, Swansea, the Spuds and WBA have all been playing very well and we took seven points from them and let's not forget, Dortmund are a superb outfit.

They gave us something of a football lesson for the first 30 minutes last night and it's a testament to their coach that they could sell their best player (Goetze) and still end up doing as well as they have done since.

The stats show that we ran far fewer kilometres than against Napoli and that Dortmund also outran us, indicating that Wenger had a point when he said that we were a bit jaded.

That's down to the size of the squad and the injuries we have sustained and despite it being the Chavs next week, I imagine Le Boss will have to rotate significantly and possibly throw the match away in a bid to give players a well-needed rest.

But let's get things into perspective.

Yes, Dortmund are one of the top teams in the Europe if not the world and after getting back on level terms, we gave them a good run for their money and really could have won.

Yes, Jack had a poor game (he's had a few of them recently despite the brilliance of the goal on Saturday and only completed half his passes last night), Ramsey also looked off the pace and his dribble on the edge of the box when all wisdom said to hoof the ball clear is hopefully a lesson in over-confidence that he will learn from, while Ozil also was quiet by his standards.

Maybe we lacked a real killer instinct in the final third, but we were playing a team who were so organised, even their fans cheered them on with militaristic efficiency.

The Times today described Giroud as a workhorse disguised as a thoroughbred, which I thought was harsh in the extreme.

He did well for his goal and made a nuisance of himself.

There were suggestions that Lewandowski should have gone off for his elbow on Koscielny and certainly it looked bad on the replays. But it also showed that the Pole had his eyes on the ball the whole time and while we've seen red cards given for less, it wouldn't have been warranted.

Did we miss Flamini? I don;t think there is any doubt that his organisational skills have made him essential to the team.

It also highlighted that we probably need to bring in another destroyer to cover for him because Arteta lacks the tenacity and bite, let alone the cajoling leadership that the Frenchman brings to games.

If Wenger made one mistake, it was leaving Gnabry off for as long as he did. We were crying out for some pace and Rosicky was clearly tiring in the last 30 minutes. I expect the young German will start against Palace now.

From feeling that we were one step away from the Group stages, this morning feels as if we have a mountain to climb to qualify.

But we gave Dortmund a game despite having players off their game and fatigue playing a part.

That, for me, shows that rather than putting our progress this season into stark perspective, last night actually showed how far we have come.