Arsenal took the lead early on, thanks to a well-worked move culminating in a fortuitous goal. Pires won the ball on the right and passed inside to Vieira, who took it forward before feeding Cole on the left wing. Ashley motored on (he had a great game going forward) and flighted a cross towards Bergkamp's run into the box. Although Dennis got a touch on it, it was Desailly just behind him whose standing foot gave the ball the deflection it needed to bounce up inside the top right corner, giving Cudicini no chance.

The first half was pretty even, with Chelsea forced to press on and edging it in terms of possession, but Arsenal looking more dangerous when we broke.

But in the second half Chelsea really dominated, and we had to really dig in to hold onto that lead. We still looked dangerous on the break, with Henry in particular creating stuff with his runs from the inside left position. He forced a save or two from the Chelsea keeper, and then created a gilt-edged chance for Gilberto with a squared ball across the face of goal. Maybe it was alittle behind the Brasilian, who was in loads of space level with the far post. But he still should have done a lot better than miscontrol his first touch as he tried to set it up on his left peg. He ended up making a bit of a prat of himself (worse than the miss against Liverpool), but to be fair he'd had a decent game overall.

But overall Arsenal had lost the midfield battle, which was reflected in the substitutions as Pires went off for the more defensively-minded van Bronckhorst, Dennis made way for Kolo Toure, and Wiltord, who'd had a bit of a mare, was replacd by Lauren. But the substitutions worked, giving us a bit more oomph up front as well as a bit more in midfield.

Zola was playing superbly (till he had to go off following a collision with Lauren, I think), and everything about Chelsea looked good till they got in sight of goal. It's probably as good thing that more of their decent shooting chances didn't fall to Zola or Hasselbaink instead of the hapless De Luque.

With 10 minutes to go things were looking a bit desperate. Ranieri responded to Arsenal's apparently defensive substitutions with attacking ones of his own. With Gronkjaer and Gudjohsen coming on they had a few more teeth up front. Then on 81 minutes Henry broke forward with options on either side. He chose Gio to his left, and the Dutchman bagged his first goal since his return from injury with an early low shot from the edge of the box which zipped off the turf and inside the far post.

Chelsea were rocked, and a minute later it all seemed over as Henry broke forward again. He picked up a pass in the centre circle and got to the edge of the box on the left. This time he refused the options to his right and tried a low near-post shot. Cudicini must have been taken by surprise a bit, or unsighted, because the "best keeper in the league" let it through despite appearing to have his body well behind it.

All over? To their credit Chelsea thought otherwise. They pulled on back on 84 when Petit's corner from their right found Hasselbaink beyond the far post, and his squared header was met by Stanic's head and gave Seaman no chance. And within a minute they'd restored the one goal deficit. This time a ball played into our box was messed up by a combination of Campbell and Seaman, and popped out to Petit who had mad a terrific run to get into the space to knock it in. Wenger said after the match that Seaman thought Hasselbaink had knocked it out of his hands but it looked more like the crucial contact was between the 2 Arsenal men. Having said that, I am going just on what I saw in the stadium at the time and haven't seen TV replays yet. A couple of people wrote soon after this report went up, saying that the replays clearly showed that JFH did indeed knock the ball out of Seaman's grip.

They had a great chance to equalise after that too, with a diagonal cross from their left fizzing between Seaman and the waiting strikers. Fortunately Hasselbaink tried to head the ball as it bounced low just in front of him, and missed it completely... probably distracting the other blue shirt beyond him.

It hadn't been a particularly high-quality game but the last 10 minutes, with 2 goals on either side cancelling themselves out, turned it into a thriller for those who didn't leave early.

Arsenal maintain the 5 point lead, with Man Utd in second now (thanks to a late comeback at home to lowly Sunderland).