By the new year Arsenal's latest challenge for the championship may be something more than a muffled boom from distant cannons. Yesterday they were content to rediscover the art of holding leads by beating Leeds in a match not short of flying shrapnel.
Dennis Bergkamp scored one goal and created two others as David O'Leary's first return to Highbury as a manager saw his lively, confident team defeated, Arsenal's first league victory in six games. Had Leeds taken chances at crucial moments, Arsenal, who a week earlier had lost 3-2 at Aston Villa after going 2-0 up, might have had to work even harder for the victory which has brought them to within four points of the leading pair.
Arsenal are scoring goals again, eight of them in three matches if one counts the 3-1 victory over Panathinaikos. But other, less attractive habits, still dog their football and yesterday Gilles Grimandi became the fifth Arsenal player to be sent off this season.
The French defender, who had only come off the bench in the 72nd minute, was dismissed by Paul Durkin in the 85th for a mild head-butt on Alan Smith, the 18-year-old Leeds striker who had just replaced Danny Granville. Mild or not, a butt is a butt and Grimandi had to go.
Controversy aside, the match was fast, open and watchable as the teams vied to see who could produce the quickest and most penetrative counter-attacks. Initially Leeds had the edge for pace but Arsenal won because their final passes were better judged and their finishing was sharper.
His squad weakened by several casualties, including Lucas Radebe and David Batty, O'Leary opted for three centre-backs flanked by Gunnar Halle and Ian Harte, relying on David Hopkin, Lee Bowyer and Granville to counter the renewed partnership of Patrick Vieira and Emmanuel Petit in Arsenal's midfield. For a time the pattern promised to bear fruit but once Leeds fell behind they found it difficult to get players forward in support of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Harry Kewell.
All might have been different had Hopkin accepted the simplest of chances midway through the first half. Bowyer having dispossessed Bergkamp, Hopkin started a move which saw Bowyer release Hasselbaink on the left. The Dutchman's cross was low and true but Hopkin, with only Alex Manninger, playing in place of the injured David Seaman, to beat, sidefooted wide from barely three yards.
Shortly before the half-hour Leeds learned the cost of that miss. A lob from Petit was headed forward by Nicolas Anelka and Bergkamp calmly beat Nigel Martyn to score his third goal in two matches.
Leeds were entitled to feel a little hard done by since Anelka had been in an offside position when Petit played the ball and should have been pulled up the moment he came into the movement.
At all events Arsenal were playing the sort of football which won them the Double last season, with Bergkamp in full flow, Marc Overmars showing much of his old sharpness and Petit and Vieira commanding the game from box to box. Seven minutes into the second half Bergkamp's precise square pass through a clutch of defenders found Vieira showing a superb touch to gain possession and stride past the last challenge before driving Arsenal further ahead. In the opening minute of the half Bowyer had put a free header wide.
"You've got to take your chances," said O'Leary and in the 66th minute Hasselbaink did so in resounding fashion. Bowyer's cross rebounded off Kewell's heel as he challenged Martin Keown and the power and speed of Hasselbaink's shot inside the right-hand post beat Manninger.
Leeds saw a gleam of hope but Arsenal were creating chances almost at will and with eight minutes left, Nelson Vivas having dispossessed Kewell, Bergkamp's pass sent in Petit to score. Arsenal might not have beaten Brazil but at least Wenger was persuaded to revise his annual dismissal of their title chances from doubtful to maybe. But his defence is still being exposed. The difference yesterday was that Leeds did not have a Dion Dublin to take advantage.
Arsenal: Manninger, Dixon, Vieira, Bould, Vivas, Ljungberg (Grimandi 71), Anelka, Bergkamp, Overmars (Wreh 87), Keown, Petit. Subs Not Used: Boa Morte, Mendez, Lukic. Sent Off: Grimandi (86). Booked: Vieira, Bergkamp. Goals: Bergkamp 28, Vieira 53, Petit 82.
Leeds United: Martyn, Haaland, Hasselbaink, Bowyer, Hopkin, Granville (Smith 81), Halle, Kewell, Harte, Woodgate, Molenaar (Wetherall 44). Subs Not Used: Sharpe, Wijnhard, Robinson. Booked: Woodgate, Hopkin, Harte. Goals: Hasselbaink 66. Att: 38,025.
Referee: P Durkin (Portland).
