Better, much better.

Ok, so we're a bit lucky to get away with a point. But it was a much improved performance and a deserved point on balance.

Most of the game happened in the last 15 minutes. Vieira picked up his first (deserved) booking for a late tackle, and showed a bit of petulance by initially ignoring the ref when he called him over. Moments later he was waiting for a high United ball forward to come down when van Nistelrooy jumped all over him. It wasn't that bad a foul by the striker, but Vieira kicked out towards him from a prone position. I say "towards" rather than "at", because van Nistelrooy was far enough away that there wasn't any danger of Paddy's boot making contact with his midriff. But Van Nistelrooy made a movement away from the boot, and from the ref's angle it could well have looked like contact was made. Even if he realised contact wasn't made, it could definitely have looked like contact was intended. Some will argue that van Nistelrooy's reaction was unnecessary and caused the sending off, but I have to say that it looked like a natural reaction to me. There's simply no justifcation for what Vieira did, and it's worth noting that he was only booked for it, rather than sent straight off, so perhaps the ref got it perfectly right. Van Nistelrooy got himself booked for the initial foul.

Still, we carried on defending well, right up till injury time when Gary Neville put in an excellent diagonal cross from the right. Keown and Forlan both went for it and both went down, and it did look like Martin had an arm on the striker's back.

Ruud van Nistelrooy stepped up to face the man who saved his penalty in the community shield. This time Lehmann went the wrong way, but the penalty was crashed against the crossbar and out. Keown made a point of putting his face in Nostrilrooy's straight after, and a few Arsenal players had a go at him after the whistle as well. Not particularly nice to see for a neutral, but for an Arsenal fan, it's nice to see such passion.

But I have to say that Arsene Wenger's comments after the game, regarding van Nistelrooy, were a bit disappointing. Better to keep your own counsel at times like this. Wenger basically said that van Nistelrooy was a cheat. He also said that if Vieira went, van Nistelrooy should have gone too. But, Monsieur Le Boss, the pair of them were punished equally for that incident. If the ManU man had been booked before, like Paddy, then he would have been sent off too.

The pattern of the game before those frantic last 10 minutes was that Arsenal came to defend the point, and managed to deny United many clear cut chances. The closest they came was when Giggs hit a post with a long-range free-kick.

Ronaldo did look good on their right wing, but they probably expected him to have the beating of Cole rather more than he did. Ashley was suckered into giving away a foul in the corner on 20 minutes, which was floated beyond the far post. Lehmann went for it but didn't get close, giving Van Nistelrooy a very good chance with the header. But he placed it high of the far post.

A few minutes after that Cole made a break hismelf and left Ronaldo dawdling in midfield as he made a run inside Henry who had taken the ball wide left. Ash picked up square ball and ran forward before hitting a nice low shot which just missed the bottom of the far post. Howard's dive may have had it covered.

Fortune made Lehmann work with a glancing header from the D, and as the first half went on it was more and more a question of Arsenal weathering the storm. But weather it we did.

And we started the second half in a much more attacking mode. Gilberto's pass set Ljungberg off towards the box in the first minute, but nothing was given when he went down under challenge in the D.

But our attacking gave United more space too. Ronaldo found himself withg loads of space on the right (Cole out of position? as if!). Fortunately he went for the near post where Lehmann was stationed, instead of picking out one of the 3 red shirst making runs into the box for him.

We had a few decent breaks after that. Henry started one with a run up the middle and he found Ljungberg's run on the left. But for some reason he didn't carry on with his own run so when Freddie put a teasing cross into the box there was no-one there.

With 15 minutes to go we nearly nicked it when a typical Bergkamp flick into the box for Vieira to run onto was just fractionally too strong and Howard was able to get there first. Then van Nistelrooy was put clear on their left. It looked offside but it wasn't given. Fortunately he miscontrolled it allowing us to clear.

There could be repercussions from the incidents at the end of the match, but it was all pushing and shoving rather than actual blows being exchanged so we can be optimistic that it'll just be a warning.

The point takes us back to the top of the league, with our noses just in front of United and Chelsea.