SOCCER/ FA Premiership - Newcastle United 0; Arsenal 0: Arsenal extended their unbeaten run in the Premiership to 32 games yesterday and, while this result was hardly the stuff of legend, the finger of history continues to beckon the Highbury club.
When Manchester United won the Premiership in 2000 they accumulated a record 91 points; if Arsenal win their remaining six games Arsene Wenger's side can amass 96.
Win their next three - against Leeds United and Birmingham City at home and Tottenham away - and the Gunners will go to Portsmouth on Tuesday, May 4th knowing that a win will ensure a third title in seven seasons.
Arsenal could then draw their last two games, against Fulham away and Leicester City at Highbury, and not only would they have gone an entire season unbeaten, a true achievement, 92 points and another record would be theirs. It would be a treble of sorts.
All this presupposes that Chelsea will win their coming games which, with a Champions League semi-final in the offing, may prove to be too great an assumption.
It is Leeds next on Friday for Arsenal and they were, of course, the last team to beat them in the Premiership - on May 4th last year - but Arsenal have recovered from the concussion received from the wall they ran into against Chelsea in the Champions League.
The second-half performance in the 4-2 undressing of Liverpool last Friday will go down as a pivotal moment in the club's recuperation. Yesterday there was nothing to match Thierry Henry's Friday hat-trick, but this was as satisfying as goalless draws get.
In the context of the jokes about the Arsenal dartboard having no trebles or doubles, one man in particular has strode back up to the oche. The Arsenal captain Patrick Vieira was immense, brave, skilful.
More than anyone, he carried the fight to a Newcastle side buoyed by an opening 10 minutes that yielded two good chances and three pressure corners. Two acute passes from Gary Speed had Newcastle off to a flag-waving start. But Craig Bellamy could direct the first only weakly at Jens Lehmann, and the goalkeeper atoned for his mistakes in both legs against Chelsea with a superb one-handed save down low to his left after Bellamy had back-flicked a dangerous centre from Alan Shearer. Lehmann's all-round play was excellent.
The rest of Newcastle's game was spent mainly on the back foot, with Jonathan Woodgate providing a barrier at which numerous Arsenal forays petered out.
But in attack, too much of the football at St James' is route one. From Shay Given's boot the ball is launched to Shearer's forehead and from there to Bellamy.
With Sol Campbell in the opposition defence, this is not the most sophisticated tactic but at least Newcastle scrapped for second-phase ball.
Jermaine Jenas, up against Vieira, used toes and head to nick and interrupt Arsenal though he almost gifted them a goal with a poor back-pass in first-half injury-time. Sylvain Wiltord, starting his first Premiership match since October, was set free but dragged a shot wide of the far post.
Earlier Henry had struck a decent chance wide when released by the lively Jose Antonio Reyes, who then bamboozled Woodgate with some majestic footwork to tee up Edu. Olivier Bernard arrived suddenly to clear.
The second half was even tighter. In the 63rd minute Henry went round Given but hit the outside of a post as the ball ran away from the Frenchman and Reyes hit Given with a six-yard header from an Henry cross 14 minutes later. Then, in injury time, Kolo Toure failed to hit the target from Robert Pires's corner.
Guardian Service
