Rovers left to chase sunbeams

FA Premiership/ Blackburn Rovers 0; Arsenal 2: After a break in Spain, it was business as usual for Blackburn. The trouble is that business at Ewood Park is bad. They have not won there since November. Arsenal had no trouble extending their unbeaten league run to 28 this season, 30 overall.

They found it slightly harder forcing a win against a side bent solely on defence when they themselves were not at their sharpest. Arsenal had progressed in two cups while Rovers were at training camp and the toll on balletic legs was evident.

But so was the desire.

Arsene Wenger referred to "the remarkable togetherness in this group. The disappointment of last season is deep. You saw the mental strength today. We had to rely on organisation and wait for someone to find something special."

It took an hour. Then Thierry Henry did, curling a free-kick over the wall and inside the near post, the blind defensive spot that no goalkeeper can cover.

Graeme Souness thought the free-kick's award was "a poxy decision that's cost us the game. There was a coming together between Craig Short and Henry, who made no claim. We were containing them till then. Our game plan was working."

There was no Plan B, though. As Jack Straw, MP for Blackburn, would know, if not admit, this was asymmetric warfare in which one side clearly had no WMDs. Arsenal, therefore, hardly needed a second, but, as Rovers tried to adjust to attack, Robert Pires scampered up the left, turned back, picked out Patrick Vieira's support and converted the rebound as Gilberto Silva, receiving from the captain, saw his shot tipped by Brad Friedel on to a post.

It typified Arsenal on the day, united, inventive but a little blurred at the edges. It was as well for Blackburn. Last year Arsenal were "Dunn and Duffed" by them, beaten twice, but times and decent players have moved on. On Saturday their ambition was limited by personnel and honest recognition of class difference.

As Wenger put it: "They gave us the ball, dropped off, gave us little space and kept it tight."

Even without Garry Flitcroft in midfield it worked.

"They are a super team," said Souness, "so good individually and collectively, but we kept them quite quiet" - until the clumsy challenge and free-kick that, if not converted, would have been of no consequence.

For all Blackburn's disciplined effort they were in the game only insofar as the score was 0-0. Arsenal wore yellow, Rovers chased sunbeams. And this was a dulled Arsenal performance.

"Sometimes you go through a dip physically," said Wenger. "It is then that mental strength and desire can take over."

Arsenal may well have been pacing themselves, mindful of their momentous schedule ahead, but even when connections were faulty there was no risk of a shock. Confidence courses through the side, confidence in their own ability and that of their team-mates. Their first touch was so consistently good that the ball was instantly where they wanted it to give themselves the maximum number of options - passes long or short, bent or cushioned, crisp or soft.

They were seldom rushed, and even their mistakes came back, not to haunt them but to be tidied up. They might have been performing Gluck's Dance of the Blessed Spirits. Vieira was the orchestrator.

David Dein, Arsenal's vice-chairman, said yesterday they had turned down another offer for Henry from Barcelona. Why would anyone want to leave what they have at the moment, "the sharing of a vision of the game", as Wenger put it?

On Saturday, at home to Bolton, they can equal the best start to a league season. After that big games come thick and fast.

There will be no break in Spain, for Henry or anyone.

Guardian Service