Arsenal (1) 2 - 2 (0) Bolton Wanderers
Highbury, Saturday 18th September 2004
FA Premiership
Arsenal:
Lehmann
Lauren Toure Cygan Cole
Ljungberg Vieira Gilberto (Edu 62) Pires (Clichy 83)
Henry Reyes (Bergkamp 71)
As expected, Freddie returned and Bergkamp took a rest, enabling Reyes and Pires to both play.
Bolton did not follow the PSV blueprint, on a high after their terrific start to the season they came with plenty of confidence, and rather than packing their own defence to start with they asked questions of ours. Lehmann was kept busy with crosses being fired into his box, Nolan fired just wide, and Okocha at times ran rings round us on the left. At the other end we had one great chance when Jaaskelainen rushed out to the edge of his box to meet Henry and make a terrific save, with Jaidi blocking the rebound effort from Pires. When
Arsenal took the lead after half an hour, it was a little against the run of play. Henry scored it with an assist from Vieira, the latter knocking it down the left for Henry who held off N'Gotty long enough to squeeze a shot just inside the post.
We had a couple more chances in the wake of the goal, but from the restart Bolton appeared to have found their confidence again. Another long-range effort from Nolan clipped the bar.
They levelled on the hour, defender Jaidi (the one who's been keeping Hierro out) heading home an Okocha corner.
We went ahead again a few minutes later when Pires helped the ball over the line - possibly not our most beautiful goal of the season so far. He tried to flick Freddie's cross into the net but instead miskicked it so much that Jaaskelainen was left completely wrong-footed as it trickled past him.
But with 5 minutes to go it was Pedersen again (as at the Reebok last year) who grabbed a point for the Trotters. A soft goal perhaps, but no more than they deserved.
Not a bad result given the balance of play and the form that Bolton are in at the moment. No-one likes to lose, and it seems like it's been a long long while since we've had to say that Arsenal have failed to equal a record (this would have been our 6th straight win at the start of the season, equalling Newcastle's pverall Premiership record as well as Arsenal's own best-ever start). But we had to stop winning sooner or later. Still haven't lost for a while though, and Chelsea's failure to beat Tottenham leaves us still a couple of points clear in the table. | 
