Standard Liege 2 Arsenal 3:AFTER THE turmoil of recent weeks, Arsenal might have hoped for a serene evening in Belgium. Instead, and not without great surprise, it was ignited in a blaze of emotion and controversy. Arsene Wenger's team cannot do things the easy way.

They trailed 2-0 after a quite dreadful start. The second of the goals came from a penalty, in which a player in familiar circumstances had felt some slight contact and gone to ground. But Arsenal gathered themselves and, having pulled one goal back before half-time through the impressive Nicklas Bendtner, they mustered a grand finale.

There was more than the hint of offside surrounding Thomas Vermaelen’s equaliser but this was not a night for Arsenal complaints. The winner, inevitably, came from Eduardo da Silva, the striker who would not have played had his Uefa suspension for diving not been overturned on Monday.

Arsenal arrived in the midst of an injury crisis, which had claimed Robin van Persie, Andrey Arshavin and Theo Walcott, among others, together with the goalkeepers Manuel Almunia and Lukasz Fabianski.

Wenger was consequently forced to start with the 21-year-old Italian Vito Mannone. All eyes were on him and he looked understandably nervous. Yet not even his worst nightmares could have foretold that he would pick the ball out of his net twice in the opening four minutes.

Fired up by a raucous home crowd, Standard took the game to Arsenal and Wenger’s men were guilty of fundamental errors. Eduardo simply cannot avoid the spotlight at present and it was his ludicrously ill-advised back-heel, after Vermaelen had half-cleared a corner, that led to the first goal.

The Croatia forward succeeded only in dropping the ball at the feet of Eliaquim Mangala, who was lurking dangerously inside him, and the powerful central defender brushed off Cesc Fabregas and accepted the invitation to shoot. His low drive from the edge of the area beat Mannone inside his near post.

Worse quickly followed for Arsenal. William Gallas felt Milan Jovanovic check inside him and, clumsily, the defender thrust out a leg. Jovanovic might have felt the faintest of contact but he made sure that his dramatic tumble impelled the Spanish referee Eduardo Iturralde to point to the penalty spot. Replays appeared to show that the contact came outside the area.

Jovanovic picked himself up to send Mannone the wrong way.

Character was sorely required but with Mannone slicing a couple of kicks, the crowd roared their derision. Slowly, though, Arsenal took control of possession and they pressed Standard back. Bendtner was a muscular presence up front as the lone striker and he got his reward on the stroke of half-time when, after fine approach work and a through ball from Abou Diaby, he blasted a shot between the legs of the goalkeeper, Sinan Bolat, from a tight angle.

The Dane’s goal set the scene for an end-to-end second-half. Both teams bristled with youthful exuberance and their shared intention was to attack. It became Arsenal’s kind of game. There was alarm immediately after the break when further defensive sloppiness gave Dieudonne Mbokani a sighting of goal but the threat was snuffed out by Alex Song’s block. Fast forward to the other end and Bendtner, in a glorious position and preparing to pull the trigger, was robbed by Mangala’s sliding tackle.

The tie turned in controversial fashion as it came to the boil. Standard were stunned when, from Fabregas’s free-kick, the ball was flicked on towards the far post, where Song appeared to be in an offside position. He smuggled the ball back across goal after it struck his arm and Vermaelen bundled home from on the line.

STANDARD LIEGE: Bolat, Camozzato, Sarr, Mangala, Rocha, Witsel (Traore 84), De Camargo, Gonzalez, Dalmat (Goreux 82), Mbokani, Jovanovic (Nicaise 58). Subs not used: Van Hout, Felipe, Dufer, Mulemo. Booked: Witsel, Nicaise.

ARSENAL: Mannone, Eboue (Sagna 80), Gallas, Vermaelen, Clichy, Diaby, Fabregas, Song Billong, Rosicky (Ramsey 70), Eduardo (Wilshere 86), Bendtner. Subs not used: Szczesny, Silvestre, Gibbs, Watt. Booked: Clichy.

Referee: Eduardo Iturralde Gonzalez (Spain).