FA Premiership/ Arsenal 3 Charlton 0: Arsenal must be groggy with disbelief that, despite the availability of Premiership opponents as hapless as this, they are a mere fifth in the table. The visitors to Highbury should also have departed in just as great amazement. Absurd as it seems after this showing, obscurity somehow does not await them.
"We've still got an opportunity to have our best season since I've been here," said the Charlton manager Alan Curbishley, who was appointed in 1991. On Thursday Middlesbrough come to The Valley for an FA Cup quarter-final. Three days later Newcastle, inhabitants of the same congested Premiership mid-table zone, arrive to battle for points. Charlton must forget all about Highbury, where slackness in possession sparked Arsenal attacks before Arsenal themselves had the chance to do so.
Creative play on their own account was non-existent. If Sven-Goran Eriksson worries that Spurs sometimes leave Jermain Defoe out of their line-up, what would he make of a Charlton side that left Darren Bent out of their attacking moves? When the aspiring England forward ran offside it might have been a plea for attention.
Curbishley had told the Highbury vice-chairman David Dein that Arsenal could be the show-stoppers in the Champions League. "They are playing the football at the moment which they were when they were winning things," Curbishley said after Saturday's game. It is a beguiling idea that Arsene Wenger's team, after a barren domestic campaign, may land the greatest trophy of all.
With the FA Cup tie in mind, the veteran Chris Powell was used by Charlton for only 16 minutes as a substitute at the weekend and had plenty of breath left to claim that Arsenal, on present form, are "the best side" in the Premiership, even if Chelsea's effectiveness is unequalled. In common with everything else of worth on Saturday the scepticism had to come from within Highbury.
"In the second half we forgot the basics of the game," grumbled Thierry Henry. Wenger joked ruefully that he would have preferred it if this actually had been the midwinter fixture that the temperature suggested.
In the 13th minute Alexander Hleb started a move in which Emmanuel Adebayor linked with Henry before the captain ran past Luke Young to give Robert Pires an easy chance for the opener. The 33-year-old scorer is yet to agree fresh terms. "If I was in his place," said Wenger, "then I'd also like three years but he will get one. He knows that he'll be part of my plans."
Hleb has become influential since striking up an enterprising partnership with Emmanuel Eboue on the right. The Belarus international volleyed the third after two efforts from Emmmanuel Adebayor were blocked.
The latter had already claimed his first Highbury goal following a mistake by Hermann Hreidarsson after 32 minutes. Adebayor can be muddled and earlier, when Jon Spector lost the ball, he dithered so that he neither shot nor squared to an unmarked Henry.
Nonetheless, it is his rangy power that makes him the closest thing to a target man that Wenger will ever contemplate. "Players like Dennis (Bergkamp), Robin van Persie and myself like to get behind but he waits for others to arrive. We finally have that type of striker we have been looking for," Henry said.
On Saturday Wenger's general contentment seemed deepest of all. He virtually admitted to an approach from Real Madrid by remarking, "It's difficult to find people who don't talk in football, and I talk too much." The comment was made lightly but the new project at Arsenal is so engrossing for Wenger that he could not bear to abandon it.
