THE bookmakers at Hillsborough were offering generous odds for a goalless draw: a minor surprise on an afternoon full of them and especially so because of Sheffield Wednesday's propensity for even Stephens.
A gaping stretch of 10 matches without defeat for David Pleat's side has now been flattered with eight of them.
Dennis Bergkamp, the player looking most likely to summon the invention capable of justifying Arsenal's reputation as pre-match favourites, hit a post. The ball could have bounced in but did not and the visitors remain second in the Premiership, three points behind Liverpool.
Whipping boys no longer, Wednesday's carefully constructed monicker as party poopers had already accounted for unlikely victories against Liverpool, Newcastle and Aston Villa, as well as recent draws with Tottenham and Manchester United.
A repeat of Wednesday's contentious 4-1 mugging at Highbury last September rarely looked on the cards. That match had suffered its fair share of controversy. Des Walker's dismissal was compounded by the ultimately rescinded disrepute charges against Arsenal's Ian Wright and Nigel Winterburn: the former for abusive comments aimed guilelessly at Pleat and the latter for graphic hand signals at the visiting fans.
Winterburn was treated to more than a few in return on his arrival and on every other occasion he touched the ball thereafter, as was his fellow victim of injustice, largely for the early close-up view of his boot that Wright gave Kevin Pressman as he moved low to smother Bergkamp's cross. Until two minutes from time, when he dragged a volley across the goalmouth, that was about the extent of Wright's involvement.
The closely cropped and tightly shepherded Benito Carbone had a brace of shots of vastly different quality comfortably repelled while the enigma that is John Lukic caused a ripple of excitement with his customary heavy-handed attempt at an aerial clearance.
But the best of the first half's chances invariably fell to Arsenal, who twice blazed clear-cut efforts over the crossbar when that outcome seemed least plausible.
The first was by far the more demanding but the nearer to success as Bergkamp collected a pass from Ray Parlour on the edge of the area before fizzing his shot only inches high of his intended target.
Bergkamp was intrinsically in the second, superbly collecting Martin Keown's long upfield ball with the inside of his boot. From the Dutch master to English artisan: without a Wednesday defender in sight, David Platt fluffed his lines, fIashed wastefully high and was substituted at half-time.
The effect of Platt's disappearance was more evolutionary than immediate, although his replacement, Paul Shaw, did execute a telling cross: and one that dropped on to Bergkamp's forehead. This time he hit the base of the post, accuracy once more apparent by its absence.
It was from Shaw's part of the ground that David Hirst had already begun the sort of muscular dribble that Sheffield had hitherto lacked: a double rarity considering the striker's regular sick notes and futile search for any lasting state of fitness.
There was more than a hint of theatre in Hirst's reaction when Keown made the obligatory contact but in truth the initial challenge bore all the hallmarks of a pantomime villain. All Keown failed to produce as he protested his innocence was a guttural cackle and a moustache to twiddle.
Arsenal were all too clearly missing Patrick Vieira's calming influence. Sheffield Wednesday lacked a magnet attracting foot to a final pass. The match in general was greatly lacking quality.
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