Gallas strike settles it

Arsenal 1 Chelsea 0:   William Gallas netted the only goal against his old club as Arsenal beat Chelsea to return to the top of the Premier League table. The Gunners had been relegated to second spot briefly by Manchester United's 1-0 win at Liverpool earlier in the day.

But Gallas headed home the winner in first-half stoppage time to restore a one-point advantage at the summit for Arsene Wenger's team. He nodded the ball into an empty net after Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech came to try and collect a looping Cesc Fabregas corner, but failed to make any contact.

The victory was a deserved one for an Arsenal team who looked the brighter outfit for most of the 90 minutes.

Chelsea started with plenty of intent but losing skipper John Terry to a foot injury in the latter stages of the first half took the wind out of their sails.

They still hadn't recovered when Gallas profited from that Cech howler to open the scoring.

Arsenal had chances to wrap up victory after the break, but Robin van Persie and Emmanuel Adebayor both had goals disallowed while van Persie and Fabregas both wasted great opportunities.

For Chelsea Andriy Shevchenko failed to trouble Manuel Almunia with a free header, and had a blistering free-kick tipped over by the Arsenal goalkeeper.

© 2007 The Irish Times