Bolton Wanderers (0) 1 - 1 (0) Arsenal
Reebok Stadium, Saturday 20th December 2003
FA Premiership
Arsenal:
Lehmann
Toure Cygan Campbell Clichy
Ljungberg Vieira Gilberto Pires
Henry Bergkamp (Parlour 70)
2 points dropped or 1 point gained? Given that Bolton have been on a bit of a roll recently, and that they played pretty well while Arsenal were pretty dreadful, I tend towards the latter view.
They were at us from the start. A dangerous whipped-in cross was deflected by Campbell, and went out for a corner when it could just as easily have been in the net. Then Kevin Davies had a shot blocked and missed a great chance when he placed the rebound straight into Lehmann's arms.
Our first threat was a dipper from Henry that went narrowly wide. Toure nearly repeated his matchwinning heroics with a run from the halfway line finished off with a nice ball into Bergkamp's path. But Dennis rushed his shot, high and wide.
We started the second half with some decent pressure and scored 11 minutes in. Bergkamp robbed the ball in midfield, getting his body in the way of the Bolton player who had it (the home fans baying for a foul...). He slipped it to Henry in the inside-right channel and he spotted Freddie's run on his inside. It wasn't a powerful shot that the Swede hit, but Jaaskelainen couldn't hold it and Pires was on hand to tuck away the rebound.
But Bolton came right back at us and the sub Henrik Pedersen slammed home a volley, from a headed Cygan clearance, with 7 minutes left.
Horrible weather in Bolton but that's no excuse for so many Arsenal players appearing not to want it. And why was Parlour left on the bench for 70 minutes when Gilberto was at his least effectual. Surely a game like this is just made for Ray (and Keown, for that matter). To be fair, this was a tough game for Clichy to start his spell in Ashley Cole's place (this was the first of Ash's 3 game ban), and he didn't do too bad.
At the end of the day it's only thanks to a good display from Lehmann that we got away with a point.
Arsenal stay ahead of Chelsea on alphabetical order alone, and Man Utd have taken the initiative and the top of the table with a 2-1 win at Tottenham.
Arsenal are unbeaten now in 17 games since the start of the season. That's our second best start ever, equalling 1947-48. The only time we've gone longer unbeaten at the start is 23 matches in 1990-91. Both times, of course, we won the title. | 
