Arsenal:
        Lehmann
Lauren (Cygan) Toure Campbell Cole
Ljungberg Parlour Gilberto (Bergkamp) Pires
         Henry Kanu (Edu)

Anyway, I digress. The throw went to King, who burst through and found Keane on the edge of the box. He never got it under control, but a lucky ricochet off Lauren who was well place right in front of him, set up Anderton for an easy finish right in front of Lehmann.

After that, it was pretty much all Arsenal. Tottenham had 2 more superb chances in the first half, both created by poor back-passes from Lauren. The first time, Lehmann came out quickly to get there just before Postiga. The keeper was none too impressed with the striker's follow through, when his foot appeared to catch Lehmann on the thigh. It looked a bit unnecessary, but perhaps it would have been hard for Postiga to stop the motion. Good to see that after recent events, Arsenal players are not too scared of post-match punishment to overreact a little.

The second time Lauren set him up, Postiga got to the ball first. But it was at more of an angle to the goal and Lehmann came out fast to make the save. You'd expect a top-class striker to have got one of those two chances, and Postiga will have been rueing his failure later on.

Meanwhile, Henry was torturing the Tottenham defence and creating quite a few chances, but Kasey Keller was proving himself a worthy adversary. First, a low shot from 30 yards was turned past the post by a dive to Keller's right. Then Henry pulled down a nice logn high ball from Freddie, took it past a defender to the goal-line then cut back in past the same man to create an angle and hit it towards the far side of the goal forcing another good reaction save from Keller, who was a bit lucky not to palm it into the path of Kanu rushing in at the far post.

On the hour Cygan came on for Lauren, who'd looked a bit shaky all game, and Bergkamp came on for Gilberto to boost the attacking options (Wiltord, incidentally, was ruled out near to kick-off with a slight calf strain).

10 minutes later it was Ray Parlour's pass that saw Henry narrowly beat the offside trap, just inside the Tottenham half. He raced forward down the right and Keller again did well to narrow the angle and make the save. But this time he didn't get so lucky, as the ball fell to Pires who was following up on the left and banged the ball home.

Another 10 minutes later and Arsenal took the lead thanks to a wicked deflection. Kanu gave the ball to Freddie well outside the box. With other players making themselves available (Bergkamp in the clear and appealing for the ball on the right hand side of thr box, for example), and defenders in front of him, the shot didn't really look the best option. But it hit Stephen Carr's foot and looped up and over the hapless Keller into the net. Dennis was the first to see it was going in, his raised arm calling for the ball turning into a celebration. One has to feel a bit for Keller, who had a great game and might consider himself unlucky on both goals. But the balance of play was so heavily in Arsenal's favour that there could be no question of our not deserving to be ahead.

Tottenham had a go at coming back into it, bringing on Zamora and Ricketts, but the timing of Arsenal goals was perfect and they held on well. Edu came on for Kanu just in case, but they never looked like equalising.