Everton's new signings Daveed Ginola and Lee Carsley both started the game, and Ginola nearly made an early and irritating explosive start to latest stopover.

Wright was forced into a flying save on 2 minutes as the Frenchman's shot from outside the box took a wicked deflection off Stepanovs (yes, Stepanovs). A bit later Wrigth was beaten by Ginola's curling free-kick, but it clipped the outside of his left hand post.

Then Carsley set Ginola up again but he scuffed the shot wide.

We started with an unfamiliar defence. With Adams not travelling, Dixon not starting, and Gio prefrred in midfield with Pires and Ljungberg both out, the back 4 was Luzhny Campbell Stepanovs and Upson. On the half hour Upson had to go off and Dixon came on, Luzhny moving to left back. Dixon had a great game.

I have to admit to being somewhat surprised that we kept a clean sheet. With Grimandi's on as well (albeit in his better midfield position), initial thoughts turned to that bad day at Old Trafford. But they done ok, thanks partly to having got away with a couple of things, Stepanovs in particular).

Arsenal started to dominate in the second half, and Patrick Vieira in particular starte to impose himself. A deflected Parlour shot was only just saved in the first few minutes, and a good 15 minutes of pressure culminated in a slightly jammy goal.

A poor Everton clearance came to Paddy on the right, and he chipped it forward into the box for Wiltord to run onto. He just got to the ball first, wide to the right of goal, and as he threw himself at it to hook it goalwards. He succeeded, but probably not quite as intended as he caught it with the edge of his boot and sent it looping slowly over the keeper and inside the far post.

The Arsenal defending got more depsarate as full time approached, and Stepanovs was lucky not to give away a couple of penalties. First for a foul on SouperKev and then for pulling Stubbs down and away from almost certainly heading a corner in (nice one Igors, but only when you get away with it...).

With the rest of the top 4 also winning this weekend, Arsenal stay 4th in the table, but with a game in hand.

For the record, we've pushed the record of consecutive scoring Premiership games to 27, and we've equalled our best run of 14 away games unbeaten (see Saints report for more).

Perhaps more important is the fact that we kept out first Premiership clean sheet since December 1st!

The African Nations Cup final is currently at 0-0, first period of extra time.