Arsenal - 3 Tottenham Hotspur - 0 Once more Arsenal are playing like champions-in-residence and, if last month's two successive Premiership defeats do turn out to be their seasonal blip, then such champions-in-waiting as Liverpool and Manchester United will surely have a long wait.
On Saturday Arsene Wenger's side resumed their game of leapfrog at the top of the table while Tottenham merely croaked. It may have been a north London derby but only one team was at the races once Thierry Henry had sprinted from box to box to give Arsenal an early lead with a goal born of sheer bravado.
At Highbury Arsenal played their rivals out-of-sight. In achieving this end they really did not need any assistance from crass officialdom but got it anyway. Any hope Spurs had of providing the semblance of a contest disappeared once Simon Davies had been unjustly sent off for a second bookable offence just before the half-hour.
Davies' second caution, for a late lunge at Patrick Vieira, was not the issue. It was his first, five minutes earlier, that had Tottenham manager Glenn Hoddle pleading for a reprieve from the referee Mike Riley who, when he studies the video replay, will surely find it hard to disagree.
Derbies are never easy for a referee, who has to keep the game going while stopping it getting out of hand. Riley chose the wrong moments when to be lenient and when to clamp down.
Having allowed Jamie Redknapp to get away with a raised foot as the midfielder met Sol Campbell's bulldozing tackle, and sensing that tempers were rising, Riley knew he needed to show his authority. Yet he went about it in an odd way.
As Vieira broke clear on the left Riley spotted Davies moving in on Ashley Cole, thought about blowing his whistle, decided to play the advantage and then changed his mind again when the linesman flagged. Davies was duly booked but the television replay showed that he had stopped short of making contact with Cole, who had hopped out of the way nevertheless.
Whatever passion there had been in the match disappeared once Davies had departed, along with any faint doubt about its outcome. Spurs had come to Highbury in poor shape, their autumn promise dissipated by two league defeats and a draw with only one goal scored, and the task of keeping Arsenal out with 10 men was always beyond them.
Even if Spurs had managed to keep 11 players on the pitch they would have shown their years. The ageing limbs of Teddy Sheringham and Gustavo Poyet and the operation-scarred legs of Redknapp and Darren Anderton will doubtless help Tottenham win more games once confidence has been restored, but against Arsenal they were green goddesses pursuing red fire tenders.
Not that there was much of a pursuit when Henry, having gathered Vieira's headed clearance from Steffen Freund's throw-in, leapt out of his starting blocks near the edge of the Arsenal penalty area and just kept going. It was so much like a clip from a Road Runner cartoon that Henry should have gone "beep-beep!"
One of the best action pictures of the Arsenal team of the 1930s shows Alex James streaking for goal leaving Manchester City players Sam Barkas, Jackie Bray and Matt Busby, looking bewildered in his wake. Goran Bunjevcevic, Ledley King and Stephen Carr were left in similar confusion as Henry kept them guessing until he had made space for a left-footed drive past Kasey Keller.
In the second half Fredrik Ljungberg tapped in from Henry's return pass, and Sylvain Wiltord benefited from the renewed presence of Robert Pires, who had replaced a bruised Dennis Bergkamp midway through the first half, to complete the scoring.
Rami Shabaan, the Egyptian-Finnish-Swedish replacement for the injured David Seaman, distinguished his first Premiership match in Seaman fashion by keeping a clean sheet.
"Henry's was a world-class goal in an outstanding team performance," said Wenger. "Clearly we've got our confidence back." Certainly Arsenal will need all of these things against Roma and Valencia.
ARSENAL: Shaaban, Luzhny, Campbell, Cygan, Cole, Wiltord, Silva, Vieira (van Bronckhorst 78), Ljungberg, Bergkamp (Pires 26), Henry (Jeffers 75). Subs Not Used: Taylor, Toure. Goals: Henry 13, Ljungberg 55, Wiltord 71.
TOTTENHAM: Keller, Carr, Richards, King, Bunjevcevic, Davies, Redknapp (Anderton 65), Freund, Etherington (Poyet 45), Sheringham (Iversen 64), Keane. Subs Not Used: Perry, Hirschfeld. Sent Off: Davies (27). Booked: Davies, Poyet.
Referee: M Riley (Leeds)
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