SOCCER - AJAX 0 - 0 ARSENAL: Arsenal may be making serene progress in the Premiership but they continue to find the Champions League more of a grind. Last night they failed to find a way past a negative Ajax, who set out to contain rather than entertain, and succeeded in that.
All the same, thanks to Roma's surprise win at Valencia, Arsene Wenger's team could clinch a quarter-final place in their next match. That will depend on them beating the Italian club at Highbury and Ajax winning at home to Valencia.
Here Ajax twice went close but were mostly happy to pull men back. Arsenal struggled to carve out chances in the face of spoiling tactics, which highlighted that Wenger's players lack the capacity to mix things up if their usual approach fails.
Arsenal had come into the match fully aware that defeat could significantly damage their hopes of following Manchester United into the quarter-finals. Wenger had given Dennis Bergkamp permission to travel by car to face one of his former clubs, thereby keeping his first-choice forward line with Thierry Henry.
Within three minutes, after good work by Sylvain Wiltord, Henry had drawn a good save from Bogdan Lobont. Yet that was a rare early sight of goal for either side.
As expected, Ajax again positioned Tomas Galasek as a shield in front of their back four in an attempt to reduce Arsenal's threat on the counter-attack. Their coach, Ronald Koeman, also asked Andy van der Meyde to take up a very wide position on the left, presumably in an attempt to pin back Lauren and give his team an obvious outlet.
Yet most of the first-half probing was done by Arsenal as Ajax played in a tentative fashion which relied on breaks. A brilliant flick by Bergkamp near his own area did start a counter-attack ending in Wiltord shooting into the side-netting. But more often Arsenal were passing about in front of Ajax's defence, with Wiltord and Robert Pires roaming to try to force an opening.
Puzzlingly, Henry was only occasionally venturing into the wide areas where he often does so much damage at home. It looked as though it would need something different to upset Ajax, though two opportunities did arise towards half-time.
When Patrick Vieira's excellent tackle sent Pires striding forward to create a chance, Bergkamp's shot was off target. And not long after Vieira met a Wiltord cross and was denied from close range by Lobont.
At the other end, Zlatan Ibrahimovic saw a shot deflected wide, but there was otherwise little to worry David Seaman until the 38th minute when Ashley Cole produced a great headed goalline clearance from Cristian Chivu's free-kick. And Ajax could just have nicked it early in the second half when a good break ended with Ibrahimovic's close-range shot being deflected over by Sol Campbell's vital challenge.
AJAX: Lobont, Maxwell, Chivu, Pasanen, Trabelsi, Witschge, Pienaar (Sneijder 90), Galasek (Yakubu 70), De Jong, Van der Meyde, Ibrahimovic (Mido 84). Subs not used: Didulica, Bergdolmo, Van Damme, Boukhari.
ARSENAL: Seaman, Cole, Campbell, Keown, Lauren, Pires (van Bronckhorst 86), Silva, Vieira, Wiltord (Parlour 79), Bergkamp (Jeffers 79), Henry. Subs not used: Taylor, Edu, Cygan, Toure. Booked: Cole, Vieira.
Referee: V Ivanov (Russia).
Guardian Service
