Never a pretty sight at the Reebok

Bolton 3
(Faye 10th, Anelka 45th, 76th)

The Arse 1
(Gilberto 45th, Cesc 53rd woodwork, Adebayor 80th woodwork, Cesc 85th woodwork)

We bought him for 500,000 quids and sold him off for 25 million and then the Incredible Sulk got his revenge on us in this game.

A superb individualistic goal at the end of a first half notable by its fair share of sordid incidents and a second one poached under the linesman's nose - he was marginally offside when the ball was played and the linesman was not in line to make a proper judgement - served to exorcise the demons that must have been buggering Anelka's soul for the last few years.

Probably that will ease his pain of being in limboland for some years after we sold him off. But of course he will never blame his brother-agent for his misery in the first place.

Bolton has been our bogey team these past few years and any trip to the Reebok would always fill me with dread. I know that every time we play there, we're gonna get bruised - most times literally so.

Having tried to play football with Manure recently and getting thumped 0-4 for their pretensions, Big Sam opted for a bully-boy approach to this game - as expected by most of us, except apparently by Arsene, that poor benighted soul.

Starting off with Flamini providing cover for Clichy playing at leftback, he also had Ljungberg on the inside left.

Cesc was playing general at inside right and with Theo Walcott on the right midfield, we were pretty much lightweight at the centre of the pitch with only Gilberto with any real muscle to stem Bolton's Beauties.

It was truly a somewhat touching show of optimistic faith in a fellow manager's sense of footballing pride on Wenger's part; and Big Sam proceeded to stomp all over the Frenchman's hopes of another game of beautifully entertaining football with his goons' in-yer-face approach in the opening half.

Take that, yer ugly Frogs - seemed to be the order of the day.

And how the TV pundits loved it - praising "the man's game" being displayed by Bolton, extolling the "physical side of English football" as Cesc and company got bundled over time and again, and sneering at the Arsenal players for "being silly" whenever one of them got upset over being roughed over seemingly at will.

When Kevin Davies shoved Eboue with both hands and upended him when the latter protested over Davies' "brainless" tackle, the ref only gave him a yellow card and when Arsenal players protested, issued two cards to Ljungberg and Lehmann.

Apparently neither of these players had any inkling of the new FA ruling that red cards are only issued for shoving above the chest. Another tweak at the rules to uphold the manliness of the English game, I suppose.

Anyway, Big Sam got the better of Arsene - who didn't have much choice in the brawn department anyway. With Diaby still unfit and Baptiste still considered half-jelled (he was thrown in in the second half anyway), the Arsenal boys battled gamely in the first half and even pulled a goal back immediately after Anelka's stunning goal.

The second half saw us playing a much focused game and Bolton looking distinctly well-behaved - as though abashed of their first-half bashing. There seemed to be some divine retribution with Quinton Forune and Nicky Hunt both felled by injuries that seemed to have been induced by no visible mortal on the pitch.

But then luck was not with us - Cesc hit the bar twice and Adebayor once.

Arsene said it all - Arsenal lacks the maturity to be title contenders this year. I fervently hope that he includes himself in that final reckoning.