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It was a certain penalty, and sending off, but it was, just about, the only decision Wiley got right all match. He nearly allowed a clearly offside second half Chelsea goal, but fortunately the linesman kept his flag up.

When the second half started Arsenal went on all out attack, but poor finishing saw them fail to score. The crowd urged Arsenal on, but they also sensed the sucker punch was coming, and come it did when Hleb failed to challenge SWP who received the ball from a corner clearance. Up to then I had forgotten that he was playing.

Now it became a proper match, both sides going all out for the winning goal. Chelsea fought like Tigers to try to hang onto their championship; somehow third place didn’t seem that important (irony). Chelsea’s midfield have awesome strength and stamina, and put up one hell of a battle.Either side could have won it, and every time Chelsea got a corner the crowd whistled and booed to ward off the evil spirit of shite defending. Lehmann made a couple of good saves, and Eboue missed at the other end by a matter of inches. With a minute, or so, to go the crowd began to sing “you’re not champions anymore” which is a highly risky tactic, for a minute is more than enough time to concede with our leaky bucket of a defence.

As the whistle went quite a few Chelsea players sank to the ground close to tears, there is no doubt they had given everything, but a gratifying sight nonetheless. I remember at the start of the season some fans fearing that Chelsea might win the title at our ground. Very few expected them to lose it here.

Then Pat Rice and the team managed to fuck up the end of season walk around the ground (lap of appreciation). Pat wanted them to come off, they wanted to stay. They finally came off and went down the tunnel, this confused large numbers of the crowd who were not sure what was going to happen. Some who had been prepared to stay gave up at the ensuing wait assuming it wasn’t going to happen. It was a poorly organised affair.

Those who stayed gave the players a warm reception, but it was a fairly muted affair. Gooners had celebrated the fact that Chelsea were no longer champions, but contrary to shit talk on MOTD they don’t celebrate drawing.

The new stadium might have affected the Gunners points tally in the first season, but they were only defeated once out of 19 games and Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea are yet to win at the Grove.