Gunners survive Stoke scrap

CESC FABREGAS limped off with a worrying hamstring injury, Theo Walcott left the field on a stretcher and will miss Sundays Carling Cup final with a sprained ankle but Arsenal, battered and bruised by Stoke City’s anti-football, answered the first question on their quadruple exam sheet and passed the test, if not with flying colours, then at least with credit.

Defender Sebastien Squillaci’s eight-minute goal at the Emirates has put Arsene Wenger’s side only one point behind leaders Manchester United in the title race and proved they are no longer the lily-livered pushovers many have claimed in the past; not even in the face of aggression from a Stoke side that once again lived on the boundaries of legality.

There will be many other tests to come, not least in the Carling Cup final on Sunday — when Birmingham City will be no less passionate or intense — and in the Champions League in the Nou Camp, where Barcelona will provide a more esoteric and more mentally-stimulating challenge. But at least Wenger can say his players have matured since the days when William Gallas sat sulking on the halfway line after his team were bullied out of a result at St Andrews.