Arsenal:
             Lehmann
     Lauren Campbell Toure Cole
Ljungberg (Edu) Parlour Gilberto Pires (Cygan)
        Henry Begrkamp (Reyes)

No surprises in the line-up. Parlour stepped in for Vieira, both as midfield dynamo and as captain. Like Vieira he was everywhere, he ran the show. And he was the only one on the pitch who seemed to enjoy being covered in mud. Boy, did it piss down or what?

I'll deal with the "fans day" nonsense sometime in another piece. The only bit of pre-match entertainment that mattered was the reception given by the whole stadium to David Seaman, who walked through the two lined-up teams to the centre circle to be have a hug with (and I think be presented with something by) Paddy. He seemed genuinely touched by the huge reception he got. It was sweet.

The first real chance came when Joey Barton gave away a free-kick for handball on 4 minutes, 10 yards or so outside their box. Henry took it quick, chipping a cute one into the box for Bergkamp's diagonal run. But a defender was alert to it and got there first to clear. Moments later it came to Dennis again in the D and he slipped it wide left to Pires who tricked his way into the box before hitting a low cross right across the face of goal.

10 minutes in there was a beatutiful move down the right with Lauren, to Freddie, and a neat ball forward from Freddie for Lauren to run onto. He got it to the goal-line a few yards wide of the post and cut back for Henry who side-footed it against the foot of James's left-hand post. Thierry appeared to have hurt a groin muscle doing so, but he did come back on after a little walk round the pitch with Gary Lewin.

Arsenal had by far the best of the first half. Anelka was up front on his own, getting caught offside too much just like the old days. But it was a close call a couple of times. The other threat was Wright's boy Sean Philip who received a square ball from Horseface on 13 minutes only to see his shot blocked spectacularly by Kolo Toure. Then Cole gave the ball away in our half when he tried a cushioned header to Pires instead of hoofing it clear like he should have done. Anelka got the ball and went on a dnagerous run across the edge of our box before hitting his low shot far to close to Lehmann. Minutes later Reyna broke down the wing and centred for Anelka. He tried to bamboozled Kolo but the Arsenal man just stood his ground and made a solid and crucial tackle.

We flashed the ball across the face of City's goal again, Cole this time after a nice move from Pires and then Dennis.

We'd been pressing them for most of the half, without so many clear-cut chances. Then, 10 minutes before the break, Bergkamp played a great pass diagonally out to the left for Henry to run onto. With Freddie storming into the box on the other side Henry hit his cross first time. It was placed perfectly, just too far out from goal for James to get to. It would have come through to Freddie and an open goal but Tarnet got there first and turned the ball into the net for us.

As the match started it was a nice if slightly crisp winter's day, but as half time approached it had become a deluge. The rain may have helped a bit though, because (presumably because of recent weather) this was the worst Highbury pitch I'd seen for a long time (of course, that doesn't mean it wasn't better than any others would have been in this weather - we're a bit spoilt by Highbury's ground staff!).

Maybe it was the greasy turf that caused James problems from Bobby's speculative shot from distance just before the break. He got down to the ball well enough but spilled it onto the 6 yard line. To be fair to "England's number one", he bounced up quickly and got down bravely again to pounce on the ball before Freddie could get there.

We went a bit off the boil in the second half, with Henry having a partoicularly quiet game. He seemed a bit subdued after the suspected groin tweak, and he took another knock too. Dennis was having a pretty good game though. He made a massive tackle on Anelka early on in the second half and then forced a save from James with a surprise shot from the edge of the D.

Their chinese geezer Sun Jihai showed a nice bit of skill when he turned past Henry in the middle of out half before setting off on a run which finished with a good shot from the D, saved nicely by Jens. Then Jens flapped a little at a cross and was lucky that Kolo got across quick enough to block the shot after Anelka got to the rebound.

Quarter of an hour after the break and Edu came on for Freddie. Edu went to the left, and I think Parlour and Pires shared the central and right-sided duties (both of them were all over the place, as usual).

Parlour got booked thanks to some shameful play-acting by Joey Barton. I wouldn't mention it if it was another Arsenal player but it seems particularly unjust when it happens to Parlour, who just gets up and gets on with it when he's fouled (there were several grand examples of this including one later on after Barton pushed him over and into the advertising hoardings). Tarnat hoisted the free-kick into our box where Distin rose to head it low to Lehmann's left, but the big German dropped to make a fantastic save right on the line. Jens had a great game overall. A couple of times he played sweeper, storming out of his box to clear, and he made at leats 3 more great saves low to his left, from Anelka and Fowler after he'd come off the bench (in a double substitution with McManaman - now that was a blast from the past, but one which thankfully is considerably less scary these days).

With 20 minutes to go Reyes came on for Dennis. I have to say I was astonished it was Dennis that came off and not Thierry - Henry had done next to nothing in the second half.

With his first touch, just outside the D, Reyes turned the ball from his left side to the right, taking out 2 defenders and slipping the ball wide. The move ended with another great touch from Reyes, flicking the ball back for a Pires shot which was (bravely) blocked at point-blank range and then an Edu shot flying 2 foot past the top right corner.

Henry woke up a bit with Reyes around, and forced a decent save from James. Then Reyes was put through, into the box on the right, and James came charging out to make a fantastic save. He looked poised to dive at the Spaniard's feet but was able to reach up with both hands to block the ball as Reyes tried to put it over the keeper.

Up the other end, Anelka seemed to have been put clear but Campbell got back to make a massive tackle just inside the box.

Seven minutes to go and the reason for leaving Theirry Henry on the pitch became clear to me all of a sudden. Completely out of the blue, coming in fron the left, he hit a rocket inside the far post which gave James no chance. We're so used to seeing him curve them, but this one went straight as an arrow (and about as easy to stop).

Cygan came on for Pires and looked quite decent as a left winger.

Anelka pulled a goal back with a couple of minutes to go. Sloppy play by Parlour on the right wing gave the ball away as we tried to play it out of defence, and Wrighty-Phillips was able to intercept and knock it forward for Anelka. He wrong-footed the defence with a change of direction, chesting down it into the box, and the pace took it past Lehmann despite a touch. There was a bit of nonsense afterwards when Co le picked the ball up and wouldn't let Anelke have it to take back to the centre circle for a quick restart. Anelka raised his hands to Ashley's face and the red card looked pretty inevitable. Cole got shown yellow which I thought was a bit harsh. I know you can get booked for delaying the re-start but it didn't look to me like that's what Ashley was doing. It's not as if everyone else was ready and waiting for it.

The final bit of action worthy of note was a bit more nonsense in the far right corner of the field, after Reyes won a free-kick from Tarnat. He gave Reyes a bit of a shove and the new boy showed that he's no shrinking violet. He just faced the guy down, nothing really stupid. But there was a moment of concern as a load more red shirts suddenly appeared in the area to "calm things down". Later, Reyes said that he had no idea what either Tarnat or the ref was saying to him! Shortly after, and just before the end, Reyes was still charging around purposefully - he seems to have a nice line in trying to charge down clearances in the box, and nearly got a goal for it. Hard to say much on this showing, but given that he had 20 minutes in the pouring rain at the end of a tense match he succeeded rather effecetively at showing us all the things we've been told about: great pace, power and energy, nice skills, and a willingess to "get involved". He'll do.

Arsenal go top again.