Sunderland (0) 1 - 0 (0) ArsenalRoker Park. Saturday 11th January 1997FA Carling PremiershipA good day for Manchester United, who play Tottenham tomorrow, with all the other contenders drawing their matches, except for us and Chelsea who lost at Nottm Forest.
This was by all accounts a "stormy" encounter with few chances,
the returning Seaman and his opposite number Perez having little
to do. The latter continued to deny Paul Merson (like in the
FAC Cup match, last week), and made a good
save from a Bould header. According to the Capital Radio reporter,
the referee seemed a bit influenced by the Sunderland crowd. He booked
5 Arsenal players, and sent Dennis Bergkamp sent off for a high tackle
on Paul Bracewell after 29 minutes (although to be fair the reporter
did say that it Despite being down to ten men, Arsenal continued to deny Sunderland attacking chances, but then gifted them the goal after 66 minutes. Tony Adams went for an Ord cross and, under no pressure, connected badly with his right foot and sent the ball spinning past Seaman. Adams had a decent game otherwise, and was pushed up front for the last 20 minutes. But it was too much to ask and so on a day when there was an opportunity to take advantage of the other leaders failure to win, we failed to even get a point and will now be without Bergkamp, presumably for 3 matches starting in a fortnight. While order at the top of the table hasn't changed, is now looking even tighter. We go to Sunderland again on Wednesday for the FA Cup 3rd round replay.
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