Arsenal’s 5-0 mauling of Porto in last night’s Champions League tie saw Nicklas Bendtner offer reassurance on his fantasy credentials with a hat-trick – this after the Danish striker had missed a series of gilt-edged opportunities in the 3-1 win over Burnley at the weekend. Bendtner, along with Samir Nasri and Andrey Arshavin, produced a performance of quality in the absence of skipper Cesc Fabregas to ease the Gunners to a quarter-final passage.

Arsene Wenger’s post-match comments were not surprisingly tinged with satisfaction after the win and also revealed one or two pointers for us fantasy managers going into the weekend…

Perhaps the most significant of those is that Cesc Fabregas remains 50-50 for a return against Hull on Saturday. Should he miss out then Wenger gave us every indication that Nasri will continue in the central midfield role he performed so well in against Porto.

Bendtner sealed his hat-trick from the spot last night and Wenger also revealed that the striker is third on the pecking order when it comes to penalty duties. Interestingly, with Fabregas sidelined it appears that Nasri takes up that role…

“He [Bendtner] was No 3. The No 1 was Nasri, the No 2 was Arshavin. And he was No 3. He was lucky. Arshavin was out and Nasri as well when the penalty happened.”

While spot-kick duties would have been a nice bonus for Bendtner owners, we can at least be assured of further starts for the striker going into April. Wenger also confirmed last night that Robin Van Persie was at least one month from being in contention.