Chelsea 1 Arsenal 2For Arsenal ugliness is the final frontier. They're getting there. Arsene Wenger's team gave Chelsea every sort of bother. The visitors depressed their opponents by recovering at speed from the loss of a goal after 27 seconds to beat them for the second time in seven days. But the period after the interval was even more dispiriting for Chelsea.

This was another Arsenal, a different type from the side that buckled in the Premiership a year ago. Wenger had not quite decided whether he was explaining or apologising: "In the second half the focus was on defending well and we suffered going forward because our players didn't want to make a mistake."

Emulating the football of the double seasons of 1998 and 2002 is not an immediate priority. At full-time on Saturday the team savoured their professionalism in grasping a result that gives them a seven-point lead in the Premiership.

Wenger argues this is a stronger position than any they held last season, when an eight-point advantage lasted for just a few days over Old Trafford rivals who had a game in hand. Real power lies in the capacity to consolidate and Arsenal have used Chelsea to show their present strength is widely based.

Thierry Henry missed the FA Cup win and went missing from periods of the weekend action, but Wenger's group remained far superior. Just as they had at Highbury, Arsenal fell behind and still won a contest that had ended long before the 90 minutes were over. They drained the hope out of a Chelsea side who had a bevy of attackers on the pitch even after their scorer, Eidur Gudjohnsen, was sent off.

"I feel we are stronger in the air than we were last season and concede less goals," said Wenger.

Since Kolo Toure, who has developed into a centre half, is only 5ft 10in, this was a tacit reference to the removal of David Seaman. Jens Lehmann has no hesitation about charging into the midst of the goalmouth melee. "He has come out for difficult balls many times in the last five minutes this season," said the manager.

Saturday's match, oddly enough, began with the goalkeeper powerless as Chelsea took an instant lead. The otherwise authoritative Patrick Vieira lost control and Geremi crossed from the left so that Adrian Mutu could flick on for Gudjohnsen to drill the ball into the net.

Arsenal had great resources to call on in the fightback. Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri wonders about Wenger's prospects of competing effectively on so many fronts with a mere "14 players", yet the true size of the Arsenal squad is not so easy to ascertain.

The 18-year-old Gael Clichy was a marvellous replacement for the injured Ashley Cole and Edu can no longer be treated as a makeweight. Dennis Bergkamp, too, is a presence once more, after looking to be on the verge of vanishing 12 months ago.

"It is surprising that you can think a player is dead and then he is alive again," said Wenger. There might be another contract for Bergkamp this summer and the manager must regret the Dutchman cannot travel to tomorrow's Champions League match with Celta Vigo, for which Vieira is a doubt with a knee injury.

After Claude Makelele had been caught in possession by Robert Pires in the 15th minute, Bergkamp crafted the delicately curving pass from which Vieira equalised. Arsenal's winner, six minutes later, saw Neil Sullivan miss a Henry corner that bounced off Gudjohnsen and left Edu to shoot into the net.

Everything now rests for Chelsea on the games with VfB Stuttgart that start in Germany on Wednesday and Ranieri refers to the knockout phase of the Champions League as "bingo". But is his number up already? Ranieri pins his hopes of keeping the job on the fact there has been no hint he will be sacked. On Saturday Roman Abramovich did tell him gnomically the game had been "interesting".

Although Chelsea played with more passion than they had in the FA Cup, there was little excellence. Gudjohnsen's cheating when he jutted out a left leg so that he fell over Toure in an attempt to secure a penalty did not fool referee Mike Riley. The Icelander's second yellow card was shown after an hour for clipping Clichy.

Despite the money that has been spent this team was actually better in the autumn when the players were strangers to one another. The Stamford Bridge side was easier to extol last season, in times of cash-starved struggle. One fan explained why Gianfranco Zola's name is on her Chelsea jersey. She is not yet sure who she actually admires among all these new footballers.