The only serious challenge so far to Manchester United's easy domination of the Premiership is fast becoming a paper tiger. While Arsenal's contribution to a rumbustious encounter with Leeds United was tigerish in the real sense, their second successive league defeat has left them eight points behind the leaders in second place and with a considerably inferior goal difference.

"It will be a shame for the Premier League if we go into December just fighting for second place," Arsene Wenger reflected, "but at the moment Manchester United just keep on winning and to keep up you've got to win your away games."

And to win games, home or away, Arsenal urgently need to accept a higher proportion of their scoring chances than they have been doing of late. Yesterday Sylvain Wiltord and Robert Pires wasted several chances to give Arsenal a lead by half time and, after Olivier Dacourt had put Leeds ahead with a deflected freekick, Wiltord continued to miss.

Leeds, having won only once in their previous 10 matches, were in even more desperate need of a victory than their opponents. Rio Ferdinand, his £18 million sterling transfer from West Ham completed too late for him to play yesterday, was introduced to supporters 10 minutes before the kick-off. But the excellence of Jonathan Woodgate and Lucas Radebe, the present centre backs, made it hard to see where the new man will be accommodated, unless O'Leary switches to a back three.

The match was less about liberos than free-booters. The way the tackles went in the afternoon swiftly became a homage to Billy Bremner, Norman Hunter, Peter Storey, Alan Ball and others who in the late 1960s and early 1970s made these encounters watchable, but with more than a few winces besides.

Dermot Gallagher showed the yellow card eight times, seven of them to Arsenal players. This will cost Highbury a £25,000 fine from the Football Association, and Wenger, clearly angry with Gallagher after the final whistle, thought the lack of balance unfair, though he did concede it had been a difficult game to control.

A protective cordon was thrown around Gallagher in the tunnel as a number of Arsenal players lost their cool. Wenger and at least two Arsenal players are believed to have become involved in a verbal dispute among themselves as heated words were exchanged as the teams left the field. Gallagher's display is also understood to have been called into question and, as the fracas grew in intensity, stewards surrounded the Banbury official.

It is not known whether Gallagher will file a report on the incident to the Football Association, although Wenger tried to play down the situation in the after-match press conference.

The Arsenal boss is currently serving a 12-match touchline ban following a tunnel incident at Sunderland earlier in the season.

When asked whether an incident took place, Wenger confirmed: "There was a little bit of talking, but nothing physical. The game was physical, but all the rest was very nice afterwards!"

In fact Arsenal might have fared even worse had the referee taken a different view of the set of studs Patrick Vieira, who was not booked, planted under Dacourt's chin.

Nevertheless, Wenger said he was satisfied with his team's performance after defeats at Everton and Moscow Spartak. True, Arsenal had plenty of spirit, but with Dennis Bergkamp absent because of food poisoning their football was seriously lacking subtlety.

With Dacourt and Eirik Bakke returning to midfield Leeds did enough to suggest that they might have achieved more against Real Madrid, who won 2-0 at Elland Road in the Champions League last Wednesday, had the pair been available. These two matched Vieira and Parlour throughout and, with neither Wiltord nor Thierry Henry showing the prickly persistence of Leeds' Alan Smith, too many of Arsenal's movements broke down on the final pass or centre.

The Leeds attack was certainly aggressive, but the reluctance of Jason Wilcox to move up on the left and the inability of Lee Bowyer to make his usual headway on the right meant Smith and Mark Viduka often had to take on the Arsenal defence alone. Had Smith chipped Alex Manninger to score instead of shooting wide after four minutes, Leeds might have settled into a better rhythm.

As it was, Woodgate hit a post at the end of the first half and, within nine minutes of the second, as Arsenal half-expected a cannonball of a free kick from Ian Harte, Dacourt scored with a floater which took a ricochet off Lauren to take it beyond Manninger's reach.

Leeds United: Robinson, Kelly, Harte, Woodgate, Radebe, Bowyer, Bakke, Dacourt, Wilcox, Viduka, Smith. Subs Not Used: Milosevic, Mills, Jones, Burns, Huckerby. Booked: Dacourt. Goal: Dacourt 56.

Arsenal: Manninger, Luzhny, Adams, Keown, Silvinho, Vieira, Parlour, Lauren (Kanu 75), Pires, Henry, Wiltord. Subs Not Used: Lukic, Upson, Vivas, Dixon. Booked: Lauren, Keown, Luzhny, Henry, Parlour, Silvinho, Adams.

Referee: Dermot Gallagher (England).