Arsenal:
                 Lehmann
        Eboure Toure Campbell Clichy
       Cesc Diaby Song Pires (Cole 64)
Henry (Bergkamp 71) Adebayor (van Persie 64)

On 8 minutes Thierry worked his way rom the central position to the left hand side of the box, and tried squaring it to Pires but he was a bit short of the near post and couldn't turn it in.

Cesc was nominally on the right wing but seemed to be coming inside a lot to his preferred position (and to support the inexperienced central pairing of Abou Diaby and Alexandre Song - the choice of which perhaps signals Arsene Wenger's recognition of the chances of a weakened West Ham team taking a point off of Tottenham on Sunday). This left a lot of space for Emmanuel Eboue to run into.

On 27 Henry took a free kick from the left wing and swung it towards the near post. Diaby attacked it but got a bit of a shove from behind from a defender, and I think was what made him duck his head as the ball arrived. But as a result, the ball hit the defender's head and snuck inside the post.

Cesc made it 2 on 40 minutes after a lovely through ball by Henry found his run into the box. A defender tried to challenge him from behind as he struck the ball but it only helped turn the shot into a little chip inside the right post.

2 minutes later, Henry took another free kick from the left, just outside the corner of the box. The keeper set a wall up to protect his right hand post, and took up a position well to the other side of the goal. Henry took full advantage of that space and chipped the ball over the wall and inside that near post.

Unsurprisingly, Arsenal took their foot off the pedal a bit in the second half. And Sunderland to their credit had a good go at taking advantage. Only Lehmann stopped them cutting the deficit.

A minute after the break, the home side had a decent effort when Kyle connected with a square ball from their left wing. He took it just outside the box, with a couple of defenders in front of him, and tried to chip the ball over Lehmann's head only to see the keeper reach up and pluck the ball easily from the air.

They had another half chance 2 minutes later when Murphy did well to make his way to the goalline on their left and chip the ball towards the near post. Le Tallec tried to flick the ball on with his head but Sol Campbell was well positioned right behind him and blocked for a corner.

Then on 52 minutes Lehmann made a terrific save after a bad slip by Campbell let a player in on the left, he chipped the ball perfectly into the box for Le Tallec, with Lehmann having been dragged out of his goal a bit towards the crosser, but Lehmann did brilliantly to get back and make an instinctive one-handed save.

Then on 57 Le Tallec beat the offside trap, thanks to another possible Campbell error, and got free down their left. He tried an audacious lob from a long distance but got it all wrong and way too high.

Lehmann made a good punch out under strong pressure, and got in a bit of a tangle as he fell with the Sunderland player's (Brown) arem round him. Lehmann just got up, as far as I could see, perhaps having a little go at Brown. But he didn't seem to do anything physical and keep his cool as the Sunderland players got unnecessarily angry with him, including one of them who ran some distance to barge into him. He still gets stick from some quarters when these kind of incidents happen but as far as I'm concerned this was one where Jens deserves a lot of credit for not reacting. Credit to Kolo Toure too, who ran over to put himself between the keeper and his antagonists. And credit to Toure again a minute later, when he made a superb sliding tackle just inside the box just as a striker seemed to have made himself a load of space coming in from the left.

Ashley Cole made his first first-team appearance since the drubbing of Middlesbrough back in February, when he was brought on on 64 minutes along with Robin van Persie to replace Emmanuel Adebayor and Robert Pires (Cole went into midfield).

Then on 68 minutes Henry had a shot from a central position on the edge of the box which was blocked right in front of him and came to Fabregas, who played it back to Henry who'd drifted to the right corner of the box. He hit a sweet low shot across the keeper which wasn't that hard for the keeper to get behind, but somehow he managed to divert the ball behind him and was lucky to see it come back off the post and back into his hands.

Van Persie played Fabregas in on the right of the box and he should have hit a first-time shot but instead took a touch which made it easy for a defender to get over and shepherd the ball out.

On 71 minutes, Dennis Bergkamp came on to give his skipper a break.

On 78 he clipped a beautiful ball through for van Persie to run onto, he pushed it forward nicely and ran on with only the keeper to beat, but snatched at the shot a bit and placed it well wide of the far post.

Injury time lived up to its name with a bad challenge on Diaby by Smith, lunging studs-up on Diaby's leg and leaving him needing to be carried off on a stretcher.

So, we just need a win at Man City on Thursday to set up a bit of excitement for the last day of the season. I don't think anyone's expecting West Ham to be able to help us out on Sunday against Tottenham, not with the FA Cup final coming up. But you never know, there may be some players playing for their place in that final. Anyway, let's get the 3 points off of City and take it from there.

Judging from Wenger's post-match interview, it looks like there's a chance that Diaby will be out for the rest of the season. More on that as we get it.