ARSENAL. . .2 WEST HAM . . .0:English FA Preniership: If Arsenal win the title they should pay for Freddy Ljungberg to have his hair dyed gold. Having popped up with the goals that defeated Ipswich on Saturday, the Swede made a vital late breakthrough against West Ham last night.
Two wins from their last three matches will guarantee Arsene Wenger's team the title.
After ending 77 minutes of West Ham resistance by beating David James from a Dennis Bergkamp pass, Ljungberg crossed two minutes later for the substitute Nwankwo Kanu to score and shift Highbury's mood from anxious to animated.
This was far from Arsenal's best, and almost endless second-half pressure seemed certain to come to nothing in the face of tireless West Ham running and brave defending.
The visitors, and no doubt Liverpool and Manchester United, will wonder what might have been had a first-half "goal" by Freddie Kanoute not been ruled out because the officials failed to spot that the ball had crossed the line before Ashley Cole cleared.
Few at Highbury had anticipated anything other than a home win. Arsenal came into this game on the back of nine successive Premiership victories, while West Ham had lost their previous six fixtures here.
Not that Glenn Roeder's improving team had promised to be pushovers. A recent run of impressive form has lifted them to seventh, making a mockery of predictions that they would struggle against relegation when Roeder was appointed.
Arsenal's opening suggested they would win comfortably. West Ham went for a five-man midfield, leaving Kanoute alone up front, in the hope of stifling their opponents. Yet Arsenal began in the sort of irrepressible manner which saw them burst into early leads in the cups against Bayer Leverkusen and Newcastle.
Their early momentum, though, was not maintained and Arsenal were too laboured for much of the first half. After surviving that initial onslaught, West Ham settled and posed several moments of danger themselves.
In the 18th minute, Kanoute should have given them the lead. An error by Tony Adams enabled him to latch on to a long ball and, after evading Martin Keown, the lively Frenchman did what he does too often and failed to hit the target with only David Seaman to beat. He had already wasted two other openings.
After that let-off Arsenal dominated possession, but found chances far harder to come by than they had early on. That was a reflection not just of a loss of spark on their part but a tribute to Roeder's gameplan.
His heavily-manned midfield often denied Arsenal the space and angles in which to play their most fluent football. Michael Carrick was always aware of the movements of Dennis Bergkamp, a forward Roeder said he would fly "halfway round the world to watch", and their defence gave no ground. Arsenal crosses invariably come to nothing and, under such circumstances, it needed clever movement off the ball to try to manufacture a breakthrough. Ljungberg provided that to run on to Thierry Henry's pass but shot wide.
What followed at the opposite end may, in the championship shake-up, prove crucial. Kanoute, after beating Adams and rounding David Seaman, rolled a shot towards an open goal. The ball just crossed the line before Cole could effect a desperate clearance but neither the referee nor his assistant, whose view of the incident was blocked by Cole's body, spotted that and play continued.
Adams was frequently struggling in his second game in four days, but he had a relatively quiet start to the second half as Arsenal poured forward. There was a better tempo to their game now but the final ball was too often poor.
When the largely ineffective Henry did produce a fine pass to release Ray Parlour, James again saved well and Henry scuffed the rebound against the keeper, whose handling had been impeccable in front of Sven-Goran Eriksson. The Swede made a point of sitting beside his Italian partner Nancy Dell'Olio.
With Tomas Repka and Christian Dailly standing firm at the centre of West Ham's defence and the visitors' midfield scrurrying about tirelessly, there was a growing sense of frustration and anguish as the minutes ticked away.
ARSENAL: Seaman, Lauren, Adams, Keown, Cole, Ljungberg (Dixon 90), Parlour, Vieira, Edu (Kanu 64), Bergkamp (Grimandi 81), Henry. Subs Not Used: Jeffers, Wright. Booked: Edu, Vieira. Goals: Ljungberg 77, Kanu 80.
WEST HAM: James, Schemmel (Labant 17), Pearce, Dailly, Repka, Winterburn, Carrick, Lomas, Sinclair, Cole, Kanoute (Defoe 74). Subs Not Used: Hislop, Potts, Garcia. Booked: Carrick, Lomas.
Referee: S Dunn (Bristol).
