Van der Sar stands tall to deny Wenger

If Sven-Goran Eriksson wants to know how to shut out Thierry Henry in Lisbon next June he could do no better than study the video tape of Fulham's impressive defensive performance in their goalless draw at Highbury.

The predatory Henry, aided and abetted by the dash and subtlety of Robert Pires and Dennis Bergkamp, could find no way through the massed ranks of Fulham's defence.

He scored two and made two in the stunning 5-1 Champions League win over Internazionale's elite in Milan but couldn't even find a way round to the back door against Chris Coleman's unassuming Premiership underdogs.

"I watched them destroy Inter so I knew we'd have to be careful at Highbury," said Coleman, who has steered Fulham to fourth in the table having predicted in August that he was most likely to be the first managerial casualty of the Premiership season.

"We know how good Arsenal can be so we worked on our game plan all week in training. We wanted to get everyone behind the ball, leave Louis Saha alone at the front and attack them on the break. We also knew that to come away from Highbury with anything would require a world class performance from our goalkeeper - and that's what we got."

In the end it was the agility and positioning of Edwin van der Sar that denied Arsenal two points and gave Chelsea the chance to climb above them to the top of the table. The Dutch goalkeeper, at 6ft 5in the tallest in the Premier League, demonstrated a level of shot-stopping consistency that is essential to any defence serious about halting the threat from the French striker.

Arsenal had 14 shots on target - Henry supplying four of them - and Van der Sar saved them all. "I was most pleased with the save from Dennis Bergkamp early in the second half," he smiled. Bergkamp's crisp sidefoot shot, set up by Henry, looked certain to sneak in until his Dutch countryman swooped to the foot of a post and turned the ball away.