Arsenal keeps PSV out of UEFA cup

Arsenal 0

Toure went off for two fouls in eight minutes on winger Dennis Rommedahl but the depleted Gunners battled to lift a match of mundane quality with a gutsy display by their mix-and-match line-up.

Arsenal’s substitutes’ bench looked almost stronger than the starting 11 manager Arsene Wenger fielded for the final Champions League Group A clash with the Dutchmen of PSV.

Dennis Bergkamp, Freddie Ljungberg, Ashley Cole, Sylvain Wiltord and Gilberto were among the stars sitting it out as Wenger handed Swedish-born Egyptian goalkeeper Rami Shaaban his first-team debut in place of injured David Seaman.

With qualification for the second phase already certain, Francis Jeffers was given a rare opportunity to lead the attack alongside Thierry Henry.

There was a distinctly low-key atmosphere about the opening 20 minutes although the travelling PSV fans did their best to enliven proceedings with chants and animated behaviour behind Highbury’s Clock End goalmouth.

Arsenal were having the better of it without seriously troubling the PSV defence.

Pires and van Bronckhorst, working wide off Vieira’s anchor-role, looked a good tandem in midfield but Pires was receiving some rough treatment, twice flattened by PSV skipper Mark van Bommel and then by Wilfred Bouma who had a long lecture from Norwegian referee Tom Ovrebo.

It was too much for the official when Johann Vogel joined in and sent Pires crashing down at the expense of a 24th minute yellow card.

The free-kick came to nothing and it was Arsenal who looked uneasy at the back when van Bommel fired a 40-yard free-kick clean through their ranks from right to left and beyond the far post without either attacker or defender getting a touch.

Toure was booked for a professional foul when his slip threatened to let Rommedahl embark on a clear breakaway run for PSV from the halfway line.

But on the half hour, Henry’s clipped through ball into the box was just inches too far ahead for Jeffers and Waterreus came out to smother the opportunity.

And it was disaster for Toure in the 36th minute when he went diving in at Rommedahl again, leaving the referee little option but to produce another yellow card followed inevitably by the red one, reducing Arsenal to 10 men by sending off the Ivory Coast defender.

The Gunners’ anguish was doubled when, just a minute later, Jeffers went tumbling in the box from a challenge by Andre Ooijer and the referee waved away their penalty appeals.

ARSENAL: Shaaban, Luzhny, Stepanovs, Cygan, Toure, Pires, Vieira, van Bronckhorst, Edu, Henry, Jeffers.

PSV: Waterreus, Ooijer, Bogelund, Bouma, Hofland, Vogel, Van Bommel, Rommedahl, Robben, Kezman, Bruggink.