There remains a healthy red glow to Arsenal's championship prospects despite the loss of another two points through a match being drawn which ought to have been won. Yet a failure to immunise against yellow fever may yet find Highbury's Premier League hopes bedridden before the season's climax.

Having been held to 3-3 in chaotic and controversial stoppage time at Leicester last Wednesday, Arsenal could do no more than share a goalless match with Tottenham at Highbury on Saturday. They saw the ball strike a post once and the crossbar three times but were still confounded by the spirited, stubborn and well-organised rearguard action mounted by Spurs, and inspired by Sol Campbell, once Justin Edinburgh had been sent off at the end of the first half.

After five Premier League matches Arsenal have nine points and nine goals. But they have also accumulated 14 yellow cards and already, under the new disciplinary system, Dennis Bergkamp is just two cautions away from suspension. Add in Ian Wright's latest misconduct charge after his contribution to the Filbert Street furore and it is clear that Arsenal, last season's wooden spoonists in the fair-play table, are again heading for trouble.

It is slightly ironical that, while Wright received his second booking of the season on Saturday for a gratuitous foul on Andy Sinton which led to the Tottenham player's early departure, Bergkamp, who is supposed to have the cooler head, should at present be the worst offender.

The Dutchman's caution midway through the first half followed a tetchy foul on Campbell and was Bergkamp's third yellow card in eight days. Five cautions now bring automatic suspension and the prospect of losing both Bergkamp and Wright around November time, when Arsenal play Manchester United and Liverpool followed by matches against Newcastle United and Blackburn Rovers in early December, is obviously worrying Arsene Wenger.

Wright's disciplinary hearing, along with those of Patrick Vieira and Leicester's Steve Walsh, is due to take place a few days after England's World Cup qualifier in Italy on October 11th, which will suit Glenn Hoddle because it will avoid the possibility of the player having to go to Rome already banned at club level.

Wenger, not surprisingly, takes the opposite view. "We have many difficult games in November," he said. "It is better for Ian Wright to get it done quickly."

The Arsenal manager seems perplexed over Bergkamp's bookings, although he has not challenged the referees' decisions. "It was a bad reaction," he said of Saturday's foul by the Dutchman, "and he knew it straightaway. But Bergkamp's a fair player and people go to games to see players like him."

If Wright's late challenge from behind on Sinton after 25 minutes was a `nervous individual reaction' then Wenger indeed has a problem. The ball had already gone into touch when the Arsenal striker made the tackle and Sinton, having turned an ankle, went off six minutes later.

Wright was one of eight players - three from Arsenal, five from Spurs - booked by Gary Willard, the Worthing referee. Having cautioned Edinburgh for fouling Wright, Willard sent him off for a wild lunge which brought down Lee Dixon in the 45th minute. But as so often happens one team's loss of a player worked more to the disadvantage of the other.

At full strength, Spurs were stretched to breaking point by the pace, variety and sheer verve of the opposition's football. Marc Overmars was running Steve Carr ragged on the left and goals for Arsenal seemed merely a matter of time.

Instead there were near-misses. David Howells deflected a shot from Steve Bould against the foot of a post, Overmars struck the Tottenham bar from 25 yards, and Bergkamp saw a rising drive tipped against the bar by Ian Walker, the Spurs goalkeeper.

Three minutes before half-time Bergkamp played a short pass through the legs of John Scales and Wright had time and space to compose himself before scoring the 178th goal for Arsenal that would equal Cliff Bastin's Highbury record. Instead, Wright shot hastily against that much-punished bar.

Arsenal had no better chances to win the match.