Wanderers 2 ARSENAL 2: SAM Allardyce slaughtering Andy D'Urso, Arsene Wenger accusing the Bolton boss of unfairness and the national media loving every minute of it writes Neil Bonnar
What a shame everybody was left talking about mind games and referee's decisions rather than a magnificent football match.
Wenger said Allardyce's urging of ref D'Urso not to favour big club Arsenal over little club Bolton before the game was unfair. Allardyce said D'Urso was a disgrace for sending off Florent Laville after the Frenchman had made only two fouls in the game.
Allardyce was understandably disappointed while Wenger was probably just miffed because he had been beaten at the mind games.
But what does it matter? We should be talking about the football.
Suggestions that Wanderers might need help from anybody is overshadowing what a magnificent team they have now become.
Arsenal only had one thing better than Wanderers. Their reputation.
In every department the champions were matched by a team which would be in the top six if they had a forward of the calibre of an Henry, Shearer, van Nistelrooy or Beattie.
That is to take nothing away from Henrik Pedersen who was outstanding and if he matures into a 20-goal a season man in, hopefully, next season's Premiership campaign the sky is the limit for Wanderers.
As good as Pedersen was, he fell short on the two occasions he got a sniff of the goal. That is where Arsenal had the edge.
Thierry Henry was at is clinical best to run from the halfway line and put a goal on a plate for Sylvain Wiltord and, before Wanderers had time to catch their breath, Robert Pires steered an unstoppable shot into Jussi Jaaskelainen's far corner from the edge of the box.
It was vintage Arsenal that came out for the second half and seemingly put the game beyond Wanderers' reach in a few mesmerising minutes.
But to harp on about the Gunners' short dominant spell would be to misread the balance of an enthralling contest between two well matched sides.
Nobody can tell me that Pascal Cygan was better than Gudni Bergsson, Ashley Cole than Ricardo Gardner, Lauren than Bernard Mendy, Ray Parlour than Per Frandsen. Quite the opposite. And I could go on.
The best player on the park was Henry, an exquisite talent with strength and determination to match his pace and control. He was instrumental in both goals, doing everything but score the first and mesmerising his marker before teeing up Pires for the second.
But looking at the job Wanderers did on his team-mates makes you wonder how the game might have shaped up if Henry had not been there.
Allardyce told his team before the game that they must play it cagey. Fools rush in against an Arsenal side which is the master of the counter attack and Allardyce warned that a little too much ambition can leave you a couple of goals behind and wondering how it happened.
His prophecy was spot on. But then so was the character and ability of his team which enabled them to come back from the dead.
Nobody gave Wanderers a hope at two down but they have never given Wanderers a hope since they got into the Premiership and they are still there and getting better all the time.
One man who has been through it all is Per Frandsen and the Dane was great again in pulling Wanderers back from the brink.
While Jay-Jay Okocha and Youri Djorkaeff are slippery play-makers, Frandsen is the necessary glue which holds the midfield together.
It is not a pretty job but somebody has to do it and Frandsen managed to shine as the best midfielder on the park.
Complimenting Ivan Campo's orchestration of the team with a never-ending procession of passes, Frandsen just plain got stuck in, mixing it with Parlour and anybody else who wanted to fight for the ball.
His one black mark was giving the ball away to Cole by the touchline when he could easily have put it out which led to the second goal.
But he made amends with one of his specials from the edge of the box which came back off the post and Youri Djorkaeff did the rest with a glorious chip over the advancing David Seaman.
That was the first piece of quality from the Frenchman nicknamed 'The Snake' in his home country.
He, like Okocha, had been relatively quiet up to that point but both were to come alive.
The Snake bit again with a quality free kick from the left which Martin Keown inadvertently glanced into his own net under pressure from Bergsson.
All square and it was anybody's game. Allardyce was trying to send messages onto the pitch for his side to contain Arsenal. The players could not hear in the vacuum of noise and they were intent on trying to win the game.
Suddenly Okocha was full of tricks, Djorkaeff was slithering into space and Arsenal were rocking. Even Wenger admitted a point was all his side deserved.
A famous win could have been theirs if Pedersen had managed to force the ball home from under Seaman's nose after Bergsson had flicked on an Okocha throw but on balance a point apiece was fair to both sides and manor from heaven for Manchester United in the title race.
That, however, is Arsenal's problem. Wanderers have enough worries of their own keeping ahead of West Ham and, while the defence did not manage to build on their unbelievable record of one goal conceded in the last six, it still performed admirably.
Laville and Bergsson handled Wiltord easily and Henry as well as could be expected, N'Gotty had his work cut out with the wonderful Pires and coped well and Gardner blocked Arsenal's route down the right.
Apart from the two goals Arsenal were restricted to just one other chance of note when Henry left Laville and crossed marginally behind Ljungberg in the opening minutes. It takes some defence to limit the champions like that. But Wanderers are some team even without the regular goalscorer who would make them top class.
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