This season Arsenal have kept their best performances for Sunday afternoons but at Ewood Park yesterday something below their Sunday best was sufficient to take Arsene Wenger's team to third place in the Premiership.
Blackburn Rovers were beaten by efficiency rather than inspiration. It was Arsenal's first away win of the season and one achieved without the injured Tony Adams and Ray Parlour.
Roy Hodgson's struggling side were also beaten by the disruptive effects of numerous injuries, the loss of confidence engendered by poor results and, at the last, another ill-tempered loss of discipline by Chris Sutton.
Having just returned from a month out with a foot injury, Sutton was sent off for an ugly tackle on Patrick Vieira as the match entered stoppage time. Hodgson did not defend the foul or argue about the dismissal but the Blackburn manager did point out that his player had suffered a broken nose a few minutes earlier. Certainly Sutton appeared to receive an elbow in the face from Vieira as the two challenged for a high ball in the Arsenal penalty area.
With Kevin Gallacher nursing an arm broken while playing for Scotland and Kevin Davies only just recovered from a serious throat infection, losing Sutton is the last thing Hodgson needs.
Yesterday their cautious approach to the game invited trouble. Sutton was played alone up front with Jason Wilcox and the wide players, Damien Johnson and Damien Duff, giving him sporadic support.
Not that Arsenal had posed a serious attacking threat up to the moment they took the lead in the 25th minute. In fact Blackburn were beginning to exert consistent pressure through the persistence of Johnson and Duff and Tim Sherwood's growing support for Sutton through the middle.
Then Vieira caught Billy McKinlay in possession and, facing his own goal, McKinlay's panicky back-pass went straight to Nicolas Anelka and the young French striker beat Tim Flowers with an excellent shot in off the near post. Blackburn redoubled
their efforts down the flanks but six minutes before half-time they fell further behind.
Stephane Henchoz needlessly fouled Fredrik Ljunberg just outside the penalty area and after Marc Overmars had stunned Ljungberg's short free-kick, Emmanuel Petit's shot took a sharp deflection off McKinlay to direct the ball beyond Flowers' reach.
There seemed to be no point in playing the second half. Arsenal might have been throwing points away with unaccustomed abandon but they are still not in the habit of conceding two-goal leads.
Yet once Davies had replaced Wilcox after half-time, giving Blackburn an extra option up front and enabling Sutton to move around in search of openings, the match did promise a closer finish.
In the 53rd minute Davies shot wide of the near post after David Seaman had parried Sutton's 30-yard drive. Then three minutes past the hour Duff's centre from the left defeated Petit's attempts to hook the ball clear and Johnson headed in cleanly at the far post.
Blackburn thought they had drawn level 10 minutes from the end when Davies forced his way past Keown to beat Seaman with a shot into the far corner of the net. Yet even as Davies was shooting Dermot Gallagher was penalising the striker up for pulling Keown back.
BLACKBURN: Flowers, Kenna, Davidson, Sherwood, Peacock, Henchoz, Sutton, Wilcox (Davies 45), Duff, McKinlay, Johnson. Subs Not Used: Croft, Dailly, Dunn, Fettis. Sent Off: Sutton (90). Booked: Sutton, Sherwood. Goals: Johnson 64.
ARSENAL: Seaman, Dixon, Winterburn, Vieira, Bould, Ljungberg, Anelka, Bergkamp, Overmars, Keown, Petit. Subs Not Used: Vivas, Hughes, Grimandi, Garde, Manninger. Booked: Ljungberg, Vieira. Goals: Anelka 25, Petit 39. Att: 27,012.
Referee: D Gallagher (Banbury).
