Arsenal:
                 Lehmann
        Eboue Toure Senderos Flamini
Hleb (Bergkamp 68) Cesc (Song 78) Gilberto Pires
       Henry Adebayor (van Persie 68)

Charlton started well, pressing us deep in defence in the first minute and creating a half chance for Darren Bent which he put wide, only to find that he'd been offside anyway.

That good start by the visitors didn't last much longer than the first minute, and before long it was looking very much like a game which Arsenal couldn't lose, such was our superiority in every department.

Good running and battling by Adebayor, following a ball into the box which should have been cleared by the defence before he had the chance, turned a half chance into a pretty decent chance, but the Addicks keeper Thomas Myhre was allowed to make a fairly easy save.

That was on 3 minutes, and 2 minutes later a bad slip by Spector let Adebayor in again. One on one with Myhre he approached the keeper in the box, but delayed his decision about whether to shoot or go round, allowing Spector time to get back and make amends with a saving tackle. It went for a corner which found Adebayor unmarked in the box, but he failed to jump and get over the ball, and ended up heading it miles over the bar.

We had a few more 'nearly' moments in the next few minutes. On 10, Thierry Henry dropped deep and central to get the ball then sprayed a perfect pass wide right with the outside of his right foot for Alex Hleb, but Hleb's square ball into the box was cut out by a defender. Adebayor was put through but called offside, a very marginal decision.

The inevitable breakthrough came on 13 minutes, a beautiful move which took the ball from defence to the Charlton net in a few passes. Emmanuel Eboue won it deep in our half on the right. It was played forward to Hleb then to Adebayor outside the box on the left. Henry made an overlapping run just outside him and Adebayor slipped the ball through for him. Henry knocked it past a defender, ran on to it, and cut back for Robert Pires who had ghosted into an unmarked position in front of goal and made no mistake with the easy finish.

A couple of minutes later Cesc played a great ball wide right for Hleb who pinged it back left for Henry. He danced round a couple of challenges then struck a rising shot which beat Myhre but, as a result of being off-balance when he hit it, rose just a bit too much.

On 20 Pires controlled the ball superbly as he brought it out of defence to start another break. Another Hleb cross came from the right and Adebayor jumped a fair way out and level with the left post, heading the ball low but a foot wide of that post.

Henry hit a curling free kick just over the bar.

Then Henry poked the ball through the middle for Hleb's run, he tried to plough through 2 defenders on the edge of the box and went down, but nothing was given.

Charlton had a rare moment of excitement with a free kick lofted into our box which Lehmann came to claim confidently.

On 32 minutes Henry poked the ball forward into the box from the D and a defender miscontrolled it. Adebayor reacted quickest, getting to the ball then sweeping a shot past Myhre with his left foot as he fell over, a terrific finish for 2-0.

A superb run from Eboue took him into the box forcing an equally superb last ditch tackle.

A nice ball into the box on the lefr by Henry found Cesc's run, and his first time shot was deflected, still heading goalwards, but too close to Myhre.

Right at the start of the second half there was a wonderful moment of skill from Cesc bringing the ball out of defence, flicking it over a striker and running past him to re-collect it himself. The resulting move was ended by a loose square ball by Henry.

Then 4 minutes after the break we got the third and the game was effectively over. It was created by a storming but unchallenged run from the halfway line by Hleb. He got to the edge of the box and squared it a few yards to his left for Adebayor who has a shot blocked at point blank range (don't think the defender knew much about it) only for the ball to come back to Adebayor. He second shot was blocked (on purpose) but ricocheted to Hleb who drove it home.

Up the other end Lehmann had to come out to meet Bent and make a close-range save. But it wasn't enough to dent Arsenal's confidence and we started to relax and show off a bit. On 60 minutes a superb long spell of possession ended with a low shot by Pires from the right which may have got a slight deflection before glancing the outside of the far post.

Moments later Henry came close after changing direction 3 times in the D to create half a yard of space then shoot just wide. And another minute after that the ref missed a clear foul on Cesc as he prepared to pull the trigger in the D.

Halfway through the half Wenger made a double Dutch substitution with van Persie taking Adebayor's place up front and Bergkamp coming to the right win in place of Hleb (who'd had another fine game).

There was a funny moment when Myhre played a goal kick out of the box straight to Henry. The Arsenal skipper looked around with a questioning smirk on his face as if to ask where the defenders were, then obviously decided that the ref hadn't been ready for the re-start and played it back to Myhre [see below for the full story from Myhre's perspective]

Bergkamp's first touch was a shot from the right which went a foot or two over the bar.

With just over 10 minutes left Alexandre Song came on for Cesc, to the sound of "We've only got one Song", but Song didn't feature much in the rest of the game.

A great drive from Gilberto was blocked in the box, possibly by one of his teammates.

Van Persie looked sharp and had a couple of half chances. he also played a nice ball into the box on the right for Henry who was running square from left to right and backheeled it back the way he'd come but it didn't quiet reach Bergkamp before the defence got there to clear. The last 10 minutes (if not the last 40) were very relaxed. As so often happens, Arsenal didn't need to try very hard and so they didn't. But so long as we keep winning, no-one's going to complain.

Like I said, Charlton were simply outclassed in every department. The Arsenal fans' chants suggested that it demonstrated Alan Curbishley's lack of credentials for the England job. I actually think the fact that he's been able to get this rabble into a position where they're almost safe from relegation shows that he does have some coaching talent.

Rupe adds...
Jon, in fact, adds (from Norway), a full explanation of the funny second half incident described above...

Myhre is our international captain and has been in excellent form lately. The following is translated from Norwegian newspaper VG...

When the game was long decided, Thomas Myhre and Thierry Henry made a joke to stun the crowd.

The Norway international was to take a goal kick, but instead rolled the ball to the feet of the Arsenal captain. Had he been "naughty", Henry could just have gone for goal and made it 4-0.

For a moment he looked like considering just that, but the Frenchman was a gentleman and passed it back to Myhre.

"He asked med to pass to him. 'Give it here, give it here,' he said. So I did," Myhre tells VG with a smile.

"But what if he'd taken the ball and scored?"

"If he had... I was 99 percent sure he wouldn't. He couldn't," Myhre says, adding that Henry is too nice to set up people like that.

Arsenal had just made a double substitution when the strange incident happened after 69 minutes. Neither crowd, referee nor teammates seemed to get the joke when it happened [I just caught the end of it, and laughed out loud, and several people around me in the Clock End asked me what the hell I was laughing at! Rupe]

After the game, Myhre and Henry thanked each other for the game, and the joke, and swapped shirts.