Arsenal:
                   Lehmann
          Lauren Toure Campbell Cygan
Pires (Flamini 77) Cesc Gilberto Reyes (Ljungberg 71)
         Henry Bergkamp (van Persie 82)

Jose Antonio Reyes had gone on one of his "head down" runs towards the box, and run into trouble as (as many Arsenal fans are noticing more and more often) he so often does. But this time the tackle, on the left corner of the D, sent the ball back a few yards to Cesc who pushed it forward with his first touch and sent a beautiful low shot curling inside Friedel's left hand post with his second.

Thierry Henry took a free kick from the left which he sent over the wall forcing Friedel to get down and save at his right hand post. Kolo Toure got his head to the corner but it was deflected for another corner. This one also came to Toure whose shot was saved easily by Friedel. Moments later, up the other end, it was Toure who put in an important block.

Then on 18 minutes Rovers had a dangerous attack which forced our defence into 3 scrambled blocks in the box. Bellamy was looking a bit of a threat. Actually I'm not sure they'd have had anything to worry us at all without him.

Robert Pires, playing on the right again (this time, presumably, just to accommodate Reyes on the left rather than because Reyes would be better at supporting stand-in left-back Pascal Cygan defensively), went on a nice run to the goal-line and squared the ball across the face of goal towards Dennis Bergkamp, only for Friedel to get just enough of a touch at the near post to send the ball past Dennis and out the other side of the box.

On 24 minutes Bellamy was put in on the right, with Cygan nowhere to be seen. His shot from a narrow angle was well saved by Jens Lehmann but came back to Bellamy, whose second shot probably had Lehmann beat but was deflected over the bar by Toure head before it got that far.

There were long-ramge efforts at both ends, then Henry tried a nice chip that just missed the far top corner. Bergkamp hit an inswinging free kick from the left wing which looked like a rehearsed move, 3 Arsenal players having gotten in front of the defence as the ball reached the 6 yard line. It was Toure that it found, towards the far side of the goal area, but he managed to play the ball back across goal instead of goalwards.

Then right at the end of the half Pires played a perfectly weighted ball from the middle of the pitch, splitting the defence and putting Henry through on the left. He opened up his body in classic Henry style to side-foot the ball low inside the far post. How many goals has he scored almost identical to this one, I wonder? This one was distunguished by the fact that he was slipping over as he played the ball, but managed to keep his focus on what the striking foot was doing and hit it just right anyway.

There was still time before halftime for Gilberto to hit a blast from outside the box which Friedel did well to save.

The first action of the second half was a left wing cross from Thierry which was cut out by a defender but almost put in for an own goal. Up the other end Toure made a terrific sliding tackle when Cygan had been outpaced. Then Pires had to clear off the line from Kuqi after Lehmann came out and missed a corner.

Bellamy was still their main threat and, unmarked, sent a header onto the outside of Lehmann's right hand post after a cross from that side of the pitch (Jens may have had it covered). Lehmann also had to palm a shot from sub David Thompson over the bar from right under it.

Freddie came on for Reyes and his first action was to be hacked down on the left touchline. Then he broke, centrally, and played it to the right for Henry whose shot just missed the far post. Lehmann had to parry another long-range effort, and then Thompson snuck in front of the defence to meet a corner but sent his header softly and straight towards Lehmann.

Robin van Persie came off the bench for Dennis with a bit less than 10 minutes left and, in injury time, struck a quite brilliant individual goal to maintain his extraordinary recent record. It started a bit infield on the right, he took the ball to the touchline and down in, then muscled his way between 2 defenders to take it towards the box before curling it onto the inside of the far post from a narrow angle.

Chelsea won too, but best not to worry about them too much until we face them. At least the top 3 is looking a bit more normal now (though the order is wrong). I'm starting to wonder if simply hoping for Champs League qualification next year isn't under-selling ourselves a bit now. We've still got to get through the xmas period with no proper left-back. To be fair, Cygan did improve as the game went on, but he is still not good enough. If he had more pace then his tendency to lose position might be less of a worry, but he doesn't. The good news is that the rest of the defence are all playing really well.