Boro came largely to defend the point they arrived with, but after surviving a lot of Arsenal pressure in the first half hour, they suddenly found themselves with 2 more points to hang onto. And there was only ever one side that was going to score in that first half.

On 33 minutes, Adams had to head out of the box as he was running backwards towards goal, and it fell to Dean Windass. He skewed his shot well wide of Seaman's right hand post, but it took a wicked deflection off Edu just inside the box and although Seaman made a valiant effort diving to his left, there was nothing he could do.

Within 5 minutes, it was 2. A zippy cross came across the face of goal from their left. Silvinho was facing goal level with the far post, and as it came past him he tried to stop it, presumably thinking there was someone making a run beyond. But he didn't control the bouncing ball at all and again Seaman's dive could do nothing to stop it sneaking inside the same post.

I don't recall Boro having had a shot on target up to this point, and they were 2-0 up. And if we thought they'd been defensive before...

Boro played most of the rest of the game with 11 men behind the ball, only Boksic occasionally wandering forward when Arsenal had it. And we pressed them continuously, sometimes not even leaving a man on the halfway line at our corners.

We paid the price too, as Boro nicked another on the break in the second half. Windass played the ball into the box where a clever backheel from Boksic set up Ricard to toepoke past Seaman.

It was a stronger Arsenal side than we'd expected. Edu kept his place alongside Vieira (but was subbed at half-time for Wiltord), but apart from that it was a full-strength side.

This result, together with Man United's win over Coventry at lunchtime, hands Alex Ferguson the premiership for a record 3rd year running. But that contest was over already. Arsenal need to pick themselves up to keep Leeds at bay in the race for second place, but hopefully that won't be a problem, as this result was a freak pure and simple. Before that there's a little matter of a Champs League quarter-final. Today was not the ideal way to prepare for Tuesday. But Valencia won't play like Boro did, and there's no reason to think we won't find a bit more space to work with that night.