By Boris Mellor
May 1 2006

Arsenal should have been celebrating a 3-0 win but instead they had to watch Diaby stretchered off. This highly entertaining game should have ended leaving Arsenal happy with three points and Sunderland proud they had fought to the end.

But to my mind, and to Henry’s and Wenger’s, it was all poisoned by a disgraceful tackle on Diaby minutes from time.

 Even more incredibly the perpetrator only got a yellow. Then Sky pundits queued up to say that Henry was too harsh on Sunderland when he told Sky Sports: "The only thing, the Sunderland players wanted to do was kick people. - We can play football or we can play something else but some of the tackles I saw in the second half, one on Cesc (Fabregas) was clearly not for the ball."

Wenger felt unable to celebrate the win following Diaby's injury and was concerned that the 19-year-old may not be fit to take on Barcelona. He said: "The injury looks very serious. We'll get him to hospital and we'll make a decision. - It’s not acceptable to have no intention to play the ball. Even with the victory, I'm very, very down because of him."

Sunderland had started off brightly and made things very difficult for Arsenal, not allowing them to settle on the ball. They also made several chances for themselves, but their inability to score cost them. Slowly Arsenal began to get a grip of the midfield and take the sting out of Sunderland’s tempo.

On 27 minutes Jon Stead conceded a free-kick wide on the left, and when Henry curled the set-piece into the middle, Danny Collins under pressure from Diaby headed past his own goalkeeper. Arsenal, however, always carried more threat and penetration and confirmed their superiority with two further goals in a three-minute spell just before the interval.

On the 40th minute Henry neatly played in Cesc Fabregas, who although being pushed from behind was composed enough to easily beat Kelvin Davis from close range. Three minutes later Sunderland conceded a freekick for handball. The Sunderland three man wall seemed to do more harm to their goalkeeper’s sight of the ball, rather than to Henry’s free-kick which went just over the wall, beyond Davis’s reach, and inside the post.

The second half was far tamer; Arsenal didn’t try too hard, mainly containing Sunderland. The Cats didn’t give up and tried hard enough, but made no real impact. Wenger now gave Cole, RvP and Bergkamp their chance to play. Cole played just ahead of Clichy. Meanwhile Henry, Adebayor and Pires were rested.

Bergkamp gave RvP a great clear run on goal, but the Dutchman scuffed it wide. As hard as Sunderland tried they still could not make any impact. The match was now, with just minutes to go, running down to a foregone conclusion, when Dan Smith made his tackle on Diaby. Diaby was not in a threatening position, and Smith nowhere near the ball – it was completely unnecessary, served no purpose and was thoroughly sickening.