After an initial burst the first half settled down into somethign less than we'd be expecting. The only good chance fell to Henry who rounded Westerveld to his left but then hit the post from a narrow angle. To be fair, it did look a very narrow angle (from the other end of the field) and defenders had got back so it wasn't a completely open goal. [ To be fair to Thierry, I've now seen the TV coverage and know what everyone else does, that he was denied by a handball. Thierry refused to blame defeat on this though, pointing out that Arsenal made enough other chances and can only blame themselves. ]

The second half was more exciting, and Freddie Ljungberg put Arsenal ahead after their keeper made a poor clearance and Pires and Henry worked the ball forward. Freddie rounded the keeper to the other side and blasted home.

Arsenal had a few more good chances, and Hyypia cleared off the line at least twice. Henry wasted a couple, and one time, after the keeper had done well to come out and get to the ball, it skewed sideways to Cole whose effort forced one of those clearances.

When Freddie scored, it looked like Parlour was just about to come on, probably for the Swede. But instead Wenger waited a while before taking Wiltord off for Ray. Liverpool responded by taking the game forward a bit more (having been content to hit long balls up for Owen and Heskey most of the time previously). They equalised after a Arsenal failed to clear a McAllister free-kick and Owen pounced on the loose ball to hook it home with a low shot from near the penalty spot.

From that point Arsenal looked shocked. Kanu came on for Ljungberg but his most significant contribution was to give the ball away a few times.

With a couple of minutes to go one of those long balls finally worked. Adams and Keown had been coping admirably with Owen and Heskey up to then, but with them pressing forward for a goal it was Dixon left to take Owen on and he just couldn't keep up. The Liverpool striker went into the left hand side of the box and hit a sweet shot across Seaman and low just inside his right hand post.

Bergkamp finally got his FA Cup final appearance, coming on for the last minute in place of Lee. We could have done with him earlier, to be frank, if only to pose a little threat from free-kicks.

More to follow.