Who writes his scripts? The one played out on Monday was almost too good to be true. It was the sort of story that only appears in dreams or in comic books. A superhero returning to his home in a time of need and providing the winning moment, or a King returning to the arena in which he once reigned and reclaiming his place on the throne after being written off by many; whichever way you look at it, it’s barely believable and is the stuff of a legend.

However the word legend and Thierry Henry fit together. The stage had been set for him, and after entering from stage left, he nailed his lines to perfection. This wasn’t acting though. This was the real Thierry. There were no pre-planned movements, finishes or celebrations, it was all natural ability and raw emotion from the great man.

As soon as Thierry Henry received the ball from Alex Song’s slide rule pass in the inside left position, everyone in the stadium knew what he was going to do. Thierry probably knew, but he didn’t need to think about it. He’d done it numerous times before when wearing red and white, so what to do came to him instinctively. The first touch was superb before the trademark finish.

After the football year for Arsenal was generally quite forgettable, 2011 ended well with the win over QPR, meaning that we finished the year in the top four. Considering where we were earlier in the season, to be in the top four going into the New Year is a superb effort by everyone at the club.

We have been helped massively by the weekend’s results, with Chelsea, Tottenham, Manchester United and Manchester City all dropping points. As I mentioned after the Aston Villa match, this period of the season is all about results, and of the top clubs, we got the best one at the weekend. It does add a bit more frustration to the Wolves game, as a win there would have put us in an even better position, but it’s hard to complain where we are, given where we’ve had to come from this season.

The QPR match should have been a lot more comfortable than just a 1-0 win, however we learnt our lesson from Wolves and were solid at the back for most of the game. Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny were both very good, whilst Francis Coquelin gave a good account of himself when asked to play in an unfamiliar left back position.

We weren’t as good against Aston Villa as were against Manchester City, but when you score a late goal to claim all three points, who cares?

At this stage of the season, obviously it helps if performances are good, but ultimately with games coming thick and fast, it’s just about getting the job done. With the moving of the Wolves game, we’re going to head into a period of three games in less than seven days. Players will get tired physically and mentally, so maintaining a fluent style of play will be tough. Grinding out a win at Aston Villa was a great way to set us up for the hectic festive period.

As I mentioned in my last blog, we could easily have slipped into a bad run of form following the Manchester City game. We had to somehow find a way of getting a result against Villa, otherwise we’d be playing even more catch up football during the Christmas period, and be at risk of other clubs getting away from us. It may not have been pretty, but that’s what we did. No-one would have predicted Yossi Benayoun to be the man to get on the end of a corner, but we’re all grateful he appeared at the back post.

It seemed fitting that, on a day where Arsenal were celebrating the amazing history and heritage of the club, the final score against Everton was a score line that has become synonymous with the Arsenal. I doubt that there have been many 1-0 wins down the 125 years of Arsenal Football Club that were won by such a sweet volley.

With three true legends of the club deservedly honoured and immortalised outside the stadium, the modern day icon and legend of the current team continued to do his best to lead this new and developing team to make history of their own. As a squad, the current team aren’t nearly as good some of the ones represented by the legends at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday, however they’re nowhere near as bad as we all feared they would be at the start of the season.

A classic 1-0 win now looks even more valuable after the footballing weekend, with Tottenham and Manchester City’s defeats opening up the top four again. Chelsea’s win against City knocked us back out of the top four after we temporarily held the position, however it did signal the end of the last team’s unbeaten start to the season, so we can all breathe easy about still being the only Invincibles.

Wigan hasn’t been a happy hunting ground for Arsenal in recent seasons. The North West of England in general has been regarded as somewhere Arsenal don’t like to go, especially when it’s wet, and cold, and grey, and overall pretty grim. However, the new look Arsenal barely broke sweat as we swept Wigan away in the sideways rain, and our waves of attack.

In terms of the overall state of the team, many will argue that the match didn’t tell us much about the side, however I think the ease of the victory was extremely encouraging. It feels like a long time since we went away and won so comfortably; not just in terms of the score line, but in the performance as well. Apart from Jordi Gomez’s early chance that was blocked by Andre Santos, we didn’t allow Wigan to build on any momentum they built up by beating Sunderland last weekend.

Our draw with Fulham and defeat to Manchester City could have put the development of the team on hold, and although they weren’t awful performances or crushing defeats, we had to respond positively as we know Arsenal have had an amazing ability to implode in recent seasons. The response was excellent and puts us just one place off the coveted top four.