By Myles Palmer

FOUR THINGS to say today.

1.Van Persie dived.

2.Rosicky-Fabregas is the axis.

3.Rosicky scored, as I predicted.

4.Porto's Anderson looks exciting.

I DIDN'T THINK it was a penalty.

It was a game for 10 minutes and then Robin van Persie got a lovely pass from Adebayor and was unmarked but he didn't shoot with his left foot.

He deceived keeper Sascha Kirschstein,went to his right, and dived.

My opinion ?

Van Persie realised he had put the ball too far away and could not reach it. He realised that instantaneously. He knew he had blown it.

His first, left-footed touch took the ball too near the keeper and he was obliged to jerk the ball away from the keeper, who had been given the chance to lunge at RVP with his foot, and his second touch put the ball to within a yard of the dead ball line AND HE WAS STILL TWO YARDS AWAY FROM THE BALL.

He could not reach that ball. Not in a thousand years could Robin van Persie have reached that ball.He had beaten the keeper's tackle, comprehensively, but the most van Persie could do was drag his foot against the keeper's leg and collapse, twisting as he fell, as if he had been clattered.

If the keeper's hand touched RVP's leg it touched him after he was already falling.

It was a dive dive dive dive dive.

When it happened I thought he cheated.

When I saw replays, a dive. Sky studio pundits Gullit, Souness and Nicholas all said it was dive.

So the game was ruined. There was no game. It was an unfair contest. I wanted to see Arsenal against Hamburg but I saw Arsenal against ten men.

I HATE THAT RULE.

Arsenal-Barcelona was an 18-minute game and Hamburg-Arsenal was a 10-minute game. If it's a foul by the keeper inside, give a penalty. If it's outside, send the keeper off.If it's outside and Giuly follows up and scores, allow the goal and book Lehmann for the foul.

But if it's in the box, don't give a penalty AND send the keeper off.

As Arsene Wenger admitted, "It would have been a very interesting game if it had been eleven against eleven."

He also said the red card was "harsh".

A COUPLE OF WEEKS ago I said it's a game of partnerships and the team needed a new axis, a new hub, to replace Vieira-Bergkamp, two phenomenal players who worked brilliantly together for nine years.

Vieira-Bergkamp was a conveyor belt which produced move after stunning move, chance after chance, goal after goal.

Fabregas and Rosicky don't have that power, that dynamism. Bergkamp used to see more than any other striker and was the king of one-touch and two-touch. And you will never see another two-footed powerhouse like Vieira, who could tackle and pass in the same movement, or flick the ball over his man's head and explode over the halfway line with three majestic strides.

But the Czech and the Spaniard are young and theirs will become one of the core relationships in the team. And it is already the team's most creative relationship.

The best thing you can do for a good footballer is give him another good footballer to play with. (I first said that in 1974 and since then I have not ended another sentence with a preposition.)

ROSICKY'S 25-yard shot was what I expected.

It was not a bender, placed inside the far post, like Pires, Bergkamp or Henry.

It was a straight shot that dipped a bit and flashed high inside the NEAR post. He can do that. A small guy, Rosicky hits the ball exceptionally hard and he can score goals like that regularly.

Toure had gone off injured after 28 minutes and at 2-0 Arsenal sat back and Trochowski hit the bar and Sorogo made it 2-1 after dopey defending by sub Hoyte and Djourou.

LAST NIGHT I was on Dublin's NewsTalk 106, talking about the game, and I said that in future we will see more of what we have seen in the last few days. Arsene Wenger gave 90 minutes to Rosicky and Fabregas.

He wanted both players on that field for the whole game. That is why he rested Rosicky against Middlesbrough. If he had not been playing a Champions League game last night he would have started Rosicky against Middlesbrough and Arsenal would have won.

For all big games this season, Arsene will want to make sure, as far as he can, that Rosicky and Fabregas are fresh and fit and strong enough to play 90 minutes.

I was a bit surprised that he picked Adebayor ahead of Ljungberg, but Adebayor played well.Without ever looking like scoring.

THE PUNDIT on Newstalk before me was Graham Hunter, Sky's Spanish reporter. I like Graham and rate him.

He was in Porto, where the home team dominated CSKA Moscow in a 0-0 draw. He was raving about Anderson, a new midfielder from Brazil, who was the Golden Ball winner in the 2005 FIFA Under-17 World Cup.

On the Sky highlights this 18-year old kid looked like the hottest South American footballer since Lionel Messi. A chunky power player with good acceleration, Anderson is a cross between Maradona and Ruud Gullit.

Like Rooney and Tevez, he is a boy with the body of a man. Left-footed, long dreadlocks, super-explosive from deep positions like Mario Kempes in 1978. But Kempes was an adult in the 1978 World Cup .

In one attack, Anderson got the ball and set off towards the CSKA goal like a force of nature and hit a left-foot shot which smashed the post six feet up and rebounded almost to the edge of the penalty area.

Anderson is a one-man army but Porto are not a one-man team. They should have thrashed CSKA 3-0.

Porto own 70% of Anderson, agents the rest.

Arsenal play FC Porto on Tuesday September 26 and one of them is the best team in Group G.

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