Arsenal made ridiculously light work of Fenerbahce in the first leg of their Champions League playoff in Turkey with a 3-0 win, while Austria Wien and FC Basel also take an advantage heading into the second leg.
The Gunners were under tremendous pressure to produce a positive result with the critics waiting to plunge the knife into Arsene Wenger if anything went wrong in Turkey.
The Arsenal manager needn't have worried however, as Arsenal utterly outclassed Fenerbahce through the 90 minutes with second half goals from Kieran Gibbs, Aaron Ramsey and Olivier Giroud enough to give the English Premier League side a big advantage going into the second leg at the Emirates next week.
Fenerbahce were perceived as the toughest opponents Arsenal could have drawn, but the Turkish side looked a shadow of the side thought to be capable of causing a few butterflies to flutter in the Arsenal players' stomachs.
Right from the off, the away side took complete control and even if there was a lack of cutting edge in the first half from Arsenal, there was little doubt which side had dominated proceedings.
The capacity crowd were silenced in the 51st minute when Ramsey, the player of the match, picked out a run from Theo Walcott, who in turn played a perfect low cross across the penalty box to Gibbs to smash into an open net.
Thirteen minutes later Arsenal were 2-0 up with Ramsey driving home a low 20-yard strike past Fenerbahce goalkeeper Volkan Demirel, who got a hand to the shot but could not stop it from nestling into the bottom corner.
The rout was complete 13 minutes from time, when Walcott, who terrorized Fenerbahce down the right, was brought down by Michal Kadlec inside the box, with Giroud stepping up to slot the penalty into the top corner.
The only sour point for Arsenal on the night was a facial injury suffered by Laurent Koscielny in the first half, after taking a rather heavy boot of Pierre Webo to the face, which forced the Frenchman off the pitch.
In other matches, Schalke drew 1-1 with PAOK Salonika, with Miroslav Stoch levelling the tie in the 77th minute after Jefferson Farfan had given the Germans an early lead.
Legia Warsaw also took home a precious away goal against Steau Bucharest while FC Basel eased to a 4-2 result at Ludogorets with Mohamed Salah grabbing a brace.
Dinamo Zagreb's chances of making the Champions League group stages again were dealt a blow with goals from Marin Leovac and Marko Stankovic giving Legia Warsaw a 2-0 win.
