In the midst of what will certainly prove to be a most demanding finale to their season, Arsenal couldn't really have asked for anything more than a day off, a pleasant sojourn by the coast.
The disciplinary statistics of a game which boasted all the competitive edge of a testimonial hints at dark and dirty deeds yet had referee Uriah Rennie not worked so diligently to embroider his reputation as the slayer of common sense the afternoon would already have slipped from the memory.
Time was when officials arrived via the back door, allowed football's entertainers to entertain and then scuttled off home, positively wallowing in the anonymity which a deliberately low-key performance had afforded them.
My, how times have changed. Before kick-off, when not engaged in a curious, and more pointedly, a highly public, warm-up session, Mr Rennie was glorying in his own perceived celebrity status by signing autographs down on the touchline.
Once the game was underway he moved from giving away copies of his own name to collecting others, thus ensuring that football's entertainers were not allowed to entertain, thus guaranteeing that long before the opening half's midway point had been reached , disgruntled punters were levelling the perfectly understandable accusation that he had ruined their afternoon.
It wasn't so much Rennie's decision to send off Everton's Don Hutchison just 19 minutes in for the alleged elbowing of Martin Keown that moved the natives to the point of open rebellion, more his appalling inconsistency.
Although Emmanuel Petit was dismissed for the third time this season on the hour for a second caution, he should have been followed down the tunnel by team mate Tony Adams and by Everton's David Unsworth, both of whom received bewildering leniency from the hanging judge.
As Petit stormed towards the dressing-rooms, he allegedly shouted: "That's me finished with English football."
Those who have long believed that the Petulant Pony-tail is anxious to work his ticket to Italy's Serie A may just have a point.
"After missing six games because of injury, Emmanuel will now miss three through suspension, including the FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United, which is bitterly disappointing" said the Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger. "Neither foul was a bad one," he added. Despite Rennie's grim determination to fracture the football by way of a series of unnecessary interventions, Arsenal won with such ease it was almost embarrassing.
The notion that Richard Dunne, a big lad known locally as the Honey Monster, could in some way subdue Marc Overmars, was ridiculous; one can only hope the youngster had been sponsored to raise cash for Comic Relief, collecting each time the winger rounded him and disappeared into the distance.
Arsenal had actually scored - and to all intents and purposes won - before Hutchison fell to Rennie's zeal so it would be rather churlish to suggest that the Merseysiders were in any way mugged.
It was a sweet, sweet goal, sufficiently beguiling to draw rich and sustained applause from even the most partisan Scouser.
Overmars' cross-field ball travelled fully 50 yards before Ray Parlour collected, controlled and dispatched with mesmerising precision.
Bergkamp's penalty midway through the second half after Unsworth had clattered into Parlour was mere decoration as Everton had long since accepted their fate.
EVERTON: Myhre, Dunne (Grant 25), Watson, Materazzi, Ball, Weir, Dacourt, Unsworth, Barmby (Jeffers 74), Hutchison, Bakayoko (Cadamarteri 74). Subs Not Used: Simonsen, Short. Sent Off: Hutchison (18). Booked: Dacourt, Unsworth.
ARSENAL: Seaman, Dixon, Adams, Keown, Winterburn, Parlour, Petit, Vieira, Overmars (Upson 88), Bergkamp, Anelka (Vivas 63). Subs Not Used: Manninger, Kanu, Diawara. Sent Off: Petit (61). Booked: Petit, Adams. Goals: Parlour 16, Bergkamp 69 pen.
Referee: U Rennie (Sheffield)
