Leeds United 1 - 1 Arsenal

	Rio clears the ball from Bergkamp (GaryMPrior/Allsport)

The pre-match rhetoric suggested otherwise. This was a repeat of a fixture marred by two red cards and seven bookings when Leeds and Arsenal last did battle in August. There would be blood, certain critics predicted, and it would come as a surprise if 22 players remained on the field at the final whistle.

Well, someone decided to rewrite the script yesterday because - a Mark Viduka elbow aside - there was little in the way of serious incident.

Old adversaries shook hands, the temptation to inflict harm was resisted and not until the 59th minute did a Leeds player receive a yellow card. Even then, Seth Johnson was the only member of the home team to enter referee Mark Halsey's notebook.

Leeds manager David O'Leary had threatened to sack the next player who blackened the name of the troubled Yorkshire club and on this occasion his charges appeared to heed the warning. Never had his team played with such restraint.

At Arsenal, however, Arsene Wenger should perhaps show rather more concern. Lifeless at times against Liverpool last week, they again seemed to miss that vital ingredient that turns contenders into champions.

They lacked the necessary conviction to overpower opposition displaying an unusual degree of caution and so failed in their pursuit of a victory that would have maintained the pressure on Premiership leaders United.

Patrick Vieira had been disappointing in the Liverpool game but this had to be one of his worst performances in an Arsenal shirt. Dare it be said, but his mind already appears to be focused on playing for Real Madrid next season.

Without Vieira's drive from midfield, Arsenal seemed vulnerable. They began brightly enough and had it not been for Dennis Bergkamp getting a Thierry Henry pass trapped under his foot, he might well have opened the scoring.

But in allowing Jason Wilcox to slip past in the sixth minute, Oleg Luzhny presented Leeds with an excellent chance to gain the initiative and they did exactly that, Robbie Fowler meeting a fine Wilcox cross with a brilliant header.

It was Fowler's seventh goal in as many games and further underlined his call for a regular place alongside Michael Owen in England's attack.

Arsenal's frustration manifested itself in a moment of madness that saw Martin Keown toss a corner flag into the crowd. But the red mist that descended around the England defender soon disappeared.

Keown did, however, appear to be having an ongoing battle with Mark Viduka. The pair clashed at Highbury last season, Keown receiving a three-match suspension for elbowing the Australia striker.

Yesterday, Viduka gained his revenge, suddenly lashing out at Keown and sending him crashing to the ground in an off-the-ball incident in the 30th minute. What the match officials failed to notice is unlikely to escape the attention of the Football Association.

To their credit, Arsenal shrugged off what they rightly considered rough justice and continued in their search for an equaliser. It came in the 45th minute and provided the highlight of an otherwise forgettable afternoon.

Robert Pires started and finished the move in breathtaking fashion but it was the manner in which Henry dummied Bergkamp's pass to fool the Leeds defence that really caught the eye.

The second half was rather less memorable. Giovanni van Bronckhorst went close with a shot that took a deflection off Danny Mills and Keown made a brave lunge that denied Viduka the chance to leave Arsenal feeling particularly hard done by.

But that was about all either team managed to muster in a 45-minute spell that more resembled the waving of a white flag than an attempt to wrest the Premiership crown from United's grasp.

Arsenal, who have the second-worst disciplinary record in the top flight after Leeds, managed to keep it relatively clean, the bookings of Ashley Cole and Pires representing their only misdemeanours.

But, like Leeds, Arsenal try to push the boundaries to the limit and all this match proved was how ineffective both teams can be when they lose that competitive edge.

For O'Leary and Wenger it must have made for a depressing spectacle. For Sir Alex Ferguson, however, it would have been most entertaining.