As several people have already observed, whilst Townsend will get a lot of deserved attention from today's display, the players who really deserve the credit for the overall performance are Capoue and Paulinho. I lost count in the first half of the number of times one or the other of them simply nicked the ball off whichever Dinamo player happened to have it. We stole possession at least 12 times before half time and probably more often in the second half.
It was conspicuous after the substitutions that, for the first time, the opposition were able to play through our midfield and attack our goal in groups. For as long as Capoue and Paulinho were on the pitch, they couldn't get anything coordinated started, because those two disrupted every single possession they had. It was relentless: challenge after challenge, with one of our two enforcers emerging with the ball. It must also have been demoralising and exhausting - you think you have control and then you're chasing possession yet again.
Dinamo also defended badly, specifically in terms of positioning, but that doesn't make any of our 5 goals a bad goal. They were all high quality moves finished in style. There may have been wide open spaces in their penalty box, but we still had to cross accurately and finish cleanly and we did.
The only down-side of that performance was the fact that Kaboul is still visibly unable to play effectively for 90 minutes. He made it to the end, but he was really struggling for the last quarter-hour. And I suppose Dembélé was also a bit disappointing, but playing him in the the hole was obviously an experiment, so I'll cut him some slack.
Some praise is also due to Naughton, Rose and of course Soldado, who looks more like van Nistelrooy every time I watch him play.
Special mention to our keeper. Pure class. I wouldn't swap him for any other keeper in the world.
Let's not forget Lloris.
Despite the awesome result there was a bit to much last ditch defending for my liking and Hugo was called upon too much. We have a solid screen of midfielders now and our defenders are good so why do we still look so shaky in defence?