Arsenal:
       Lehmann
Lauren Campbell Toure Cole
Ljungberg Vieira Edu Pires
   Henry Bergkamp

As usual Makalele looked like a little boy opposite Vieira. On 15 the Arsenal captain muscled him off the ball and set up a promising break, but Edu's through ball was a bit loose and hit the back of Pires' heel.

A few minutes later Vieira's tackle started another great move, one which exemplified the Arsenal of 2004. After winning the ball he knocked it to the left and started a run forward. On the left wing Pires hit a volley first-time into the space in front of Vieira. Although after Paddy got to the ball and crossed, the move broke down, it was great to see Henry charging back to win the ball back as Chelsea set off to counter-attack.

On 26 minutes Makalele hit a nice chip into our box for Parker. He could have tried a volley but instead took it on to the goal-line, with Pires doing really well to shepherd him rather than try a dangerous tackle. When Parker cut the ball back Lehmann was on hand to fall on it.

Gudjohnsen (on from the start, worst luck) had the next best chance of the the first half, with a shot from an angle that Lauren got a got block on.

Early in the second half Chelsea nearly went ahead. They had a corner but lost it and we started to break forward. But Makalele got a good tackle in to put us on our heels again, and Lampard's shot was deflected by Campbell's head, beating Lehmann but thankfully also the post.

Soon after, Gudjohsnen did put them ahead. With Arsenal prressing to the halfway line, Mutu played the ball forward into the space in front of Lehmann, to the keeper's right. Gudjohnsen started a diagonal run for it from the centre circle. Lehmann came out for it, but hit his clearance at the striker. It fell kindly for Gudjohnsen, but he still had to find a good finish - with a couple of defenders running back to goal as well as Lehmann, the striker had to hit his shot quick to take advantage of the empty net.

It would be very easy to blame Lehmann, so let's do that. I guess if the srtiekr had got to the ball first he'd have had a good chance of a goal, but the thing is, he was being tracked by a defender. So the keeper's run wasn't absolutely necessary. And it rather looked, from the way Lehmann approached and struck the ball, that he wasn't aware of Gudjohnsen. Tut tut.

After the goal we were on the back foot for a few minutes. Lehmann spilled Lampard shot but managed to get to it second time. And then suddenly we were playing possession football again. It wa sa fantastic move that led to the equaliser, moving the ball all over the pitch until the space was found. When it was, it came on the left, Cole running into space to receive Vieira's pass. He chipped it into the middle of the box where Pires jumped to head it low just inside the left hand post.

Gilberto came on for Dennis, and then Reyes for Freddie. Lampard caught Lauren dilly-dallying in defence and set Duff up for a run into the box, but the awesome Toure was on hand to dispossess.

On 80 minutes Desailly made a right prat of himself with a booking for handling the ball. It was in Lehmann's hand at the time, as the keeper was in the process of throwing the ball out. Quite funny, I suppose, and all the more so when a more reasonable second yellow card was shown (for a necessary foul on Vieira who was breaking over the halfway line) and the Chelsea captain was red-carded out of the game (and out of the second leg too of course - which'll be even more of a blow if they want to use Gallas as a full-back again).

A fair result and a I guess a predictable one. They ended our run of consecutive Champs League wins, we ended their run of consecutive Champs League clean sheets. Some will say that this result gives us the edge. But the way I see it, Chelsea were always going to have to score at Highbury, and they've scored against us every time we've met this season. We've just got to make sure that we score 2, like the other 3 times...