SOCCER / Arsenal 1 Dynamo Kiev 0: The most commanding club in the Premiership at last began to exercise an influence on their fate in the Champions League.
Arsenal owe that glimmer of hope to a late winner from, of all people, Ashley Cole. Sylvain Wiltord crossed from a deep position and, once the ball had grazed Thierry Henry and Sergei Fedorov, the left-back came dashing through to head into the net from an angle.
Arsenal, who meet Inter in Milan next, are still bottom of Group B, but the mood has been transformed by a result at a stadium that had been close to becoming a shrine to woe.
The team entered this game without a Champions League home victory for 14 months, having been so spooked on their territory that they seemed to need an exorcist as much as a groundsman to take care of this piece of territory.
Making the Dynamo Kiev spines shiver was difficult before the interval. The visitors could even lose Denys Onyschenko to a knee injury inflicted accidentally by Dennis Bergkamp without becoming bemused. They had little enterprise, but usually repelled Arsene Wenger's men with robustness.
Kiev's away form in this tournament is often supine, but they stood up well for themselves against an Arsenal side adopting a more rugged approach than is normally associated with them. Goran Gavrancic, above all, rallied the team from the heart of the defence.
His deflection of attacks was crucial as Arsenal performed with the pace and appetite of a team who dreaded their departure from the Champions League.
Kiev were taken aback, in the seventh minute, by the eagerness with which Robert Pires broke and crossed. Goalkeeper Oleksander Shovkovskyi was a little fortunate that his leg happened to block Freddie Ljungberg's shot.
Arsenal nearly made the breakthrough after 33 minutes as they summoned up a moment of grace at pace. Gilberto Silva fired a fine pass to Thierry Henry, who picked out Ljungberg's break into the penalty area. Shovkovskyi impressed by responding sharply to block at the Swede's feet.
A minute later, the goalkeeper was powerless and Ljungberg would have given Arsenal the lead as he met an Henry corner kick had it not been for Gavrancic's goal-line clearance.
The Highbury side had at last created something of a barrage and Pires, after 40 minutes, forced his way stubbornly along the 18-yard line before curling a right-footer a yard beyond the post.
Arsenal were very nearly where they wanted to be three minutes after the interval. Henry, acting as a target man, leapt to head down a long ball and put Bergkamp through, but although the Dutchman paused to steady himself he still cracked his drive off the legs of the goalkeeper.
Bergkamp's chance, though, had its effect on both sides and there was a proliferation of thrills and panic at both ends. Oleh Husyev was soon bursting past Cole to send in a shot that ran across the six-yard box without receiving a touch from a team-mate.
The true excellence of Kiev was even more apparent in the burst of four passes that set up Jerko Leko in the midst of the goalmouth before an alarmed Kolo Toure and Sol Campbell combined to lunge and block. There was, none the less, at least as much terror in the Ukrainians' penalty area.
In the 52nd minute, Shovkovskyi, like many a goalkeeper before him, underestimated Henry's extraordinary acceleration as he attempted to reach him near the byline. The forward easily left him stranded with a perfect cross but Pires, with a turn of his head, put the ball wide of an open goal.
On another occasion, Husyev's shot into the side-netting from Ghioane's service would have been deemed profligate, but in comparison with Pires's miss it could have been taken for a routine incident.
That the midfielder had actually been Arsenal's best player merely compounded a superstitious fatalism about Arsenal's efforts in this competition.
ARSENAL: Lehmann, Lauren, Toure, Campbell, Cole, Ljungberg (Wiltord 69), Parlour (Kanu 75), Silva, Pires, Bergkamp (Edu 90), Henry. Subs Not Used: Stack, Cygan, Clichy, Aliadiere. Booked: Silva, Toure. Goal: Cole 88.
DYNAMO KIEV: Shovkovskyi, Fedorov, Leko, Nesmachnyi, Gavrancic, Ghioane, Shatskikh (Nanni 71), Belkevich, Peev, Onyschenko (Sablic 21), Gusev (Rincon 60). Subs Not Used: Alessandro, Melashchenko, El Kaddouri, Reva. Booked: Leko.
Referee: L Cortez Batista (Portugal).
