LATEST NEWS

Arsenal confirmed their impressive home form by defeating Champions League rivals Juventus 3-1 on Tuesday night.

The Gunners played a fantastic match throughout which they only suffered early on when world class creative Alex Del Piero first forced Arsenal third string keeper Taylor to make a difficult save with a curler aimed at the far post, and then magically set up Czech rocket Pavel Nedved with a back heel flick only to see the former Lazio star incredibly shot right at Taylor from favourable position. 

After the Italian giants’ initial burst Arsenal started to push the guests into their own half of the field, and the English lead matured on 21 minutes when Buffon should have, but could not hold onto a weak Vieira shot, allowing Freddy Ljungberg to make the easy tap-in.

One minute after the home side’s go-ahead goal, Lippi was forced to replace injured Croatian giant Tudor with Edgar Davids.

The entrance of the Dutchman on the Highbury pitch coincided with Arsenal’s best moment, in which the Gunners doubled their lead through a fantastic Thierry Henry freekick that found the top corner of the net.

Before the half drew to a close Ljungberg had the chance to seal the game off, however Buffon redeemed his earlier error with a fantastic save on the Sweden international’s short range effort.

Both side’s came onto the pitch in the second half featuring the same eleven players they went into the locker-rooms with and four mintues after the game resumed Juve got back into contention through an incredible own goal by Taylor, who without knowing netted a Sol Campbell goal-line clearance of a Trezeguet strike with his back.

In theory Trezeguet's goal should have boosted the struggling Bianconeri's confidence, but despite a couple Zambrotta long range drives, Juventus were never seriously able to threaten Arsenal once they reduced the gap, and the game’s tempo drastically slowed down.

With five minutes left to play Juventus began an all out attack on the Arsenal net, but this tactic allowed the Gunners to take advantage of the huge spaces left in the Bianconeri backfield as they did on the stroke of the final whistle when substitute Bergkamp entered the left side of the Juve box, made a couple of moves on two Juve defenders, and then majestically chipped the ball over Montero and right to Ljungberg who had no problem slotting the ball home.

In light of the Gunners' triumph and Bayer Leverkusen’s thrashing of Deportivo, all four Group D teams sit on three points.