Arsenal - 3 West Ham - 1 In a season that is starving West Ham of hope they could take no more than a grievance from Highbury. Absurdly, in view of the fact they had lost Steve Lomas to a red card in the 14th minute, there was no rout and the match turned on the murky deed with which Dennis Bergkamp helped Arsenal to break the deadlock with 19 minutes to go just when a 1-1 draw was feasible.
Highbury fans will relish the highlights, but the FA's video advisory panel could be more discerning viewers. Bergkamp, turning on the left wing, swung out a forearm to fend off an anticipated challenge and hit Lee Bowyer in the face. The contact seemed intentional, but referee Mike Dean let play continue and the Dutchman capitalised. Thierry Henry converted his cross for the second element of a hat-trick, scoring with a header for the first time in the Premiership.
"I think everyone in the ground, barring the most important person, saw Bergkamp clearly puts his hand in Bowyer's face and pushes him to the ground," said Glenn Roeder, the West Ham manager. "I have been to see referees twice this season and this was the second occasion. My gut feeling is that he knows he got this one wrong."
Bergkamp himself denied deliberately fouling Bowyer. "It was just an accident. I was protecting the ball and when I turned round, there was contact with him but I never knew he was there," he claimed.
Arsene Wenger agreed there had been no malicious intent from a forward bent on guarding possession. Few will join him in that kindly interpretation, and the provocation to West Ham had other facets. With a booking to his name already, Bergkamp might have received his second yellow card if Dean had been as strict as he was when awarding a penalty and dismissing Lomas.
"I wouldn't have wanted Dennis sent off," said Roeder. "I'd have been quite happy with a free-kick. It's a man's game." The net effect must, all the same, be to implant feelings of persecution at Upton Park and Roeder will hope that, in reaction, his players grow even more stubborn in their resistance to relegation.
There will be a limit to the persecution complex because they were not really wronged in the incident that left them lagging here. When Bergkamp released one of his beautifully insidious passes, Lomas fleetingly held Robert Pires's left arm. The offender departed and the spot-kick was dispatched, to David James's right, by Henry.
"I didn't think Pires needed any encouragement to go down," said Roeder. "He barely got brushed . . . It almost becomes a fashion when players see referees giving a penalty for the slightest touch."
Wenger preferred to conclude that Pires had keeled over simply because he had been fouled. There is no doubt an offence had been committed and the logic was inexorable. "If you don't attempt to get the ball, it is a red card," said the Arsenal manager. "I am sorry but it is the rules."
He might almost have rued the reduction in West Ham numbers because it also trimmed the authenticity of this game. There was an artificial air, as if Arsenal could view it as a training exercise.
James made excellent saves and, for example, he called upon all his litheness and anticipation when Henry, put through by Christian Dailly's weak header, was too deliberate with his shot. The best of James's reactions came in the 44th minute when he made a close-range block after Sylvain Wiltord had slalomed across the entire defence.
By then the goalkeeper's contributions had much more than a notional value because West Ham had equalised four minutes earlier. Edu was short with a pass-back and Jermain Defoe slid a shot low past David Seaman. Having been led to believe that they did not have to be wholly in earnest, Arsenal found that they could not rectify their attitude fully.
Opportunities dwindled and the prospect increased of the lead over Manchester United standing at three points. It would have been a sinister disappointment, with any Highbury sympathiser seeing dark omens in a failure from so innocuous a fixture.
Bergkamp, with a brush of the arm, swept that possibility away.
He is a superb footballer, but he has learned over the bruising years that his delicate skills have to be protected robustly. Yesterday he went too far and there have been previous offences. His stepping on Blackburn's Nils-Eric Johansson, missed by the referee, was punished by a £5,000 fine from the Football Association this season.
Arsenal would dread any suspension since Bergkamp has been in peak form and Henry's goals have much to do with the Dutchman's strategic imagination. He had a part in the breakaway third, passing to Pires so that he could send Henry through with a crossfield pass in the 86th minute.
West Ham, bottom of the table, were left to think of Wednesday's match with Charlton. Frederic Kanoute and Paolo Di Canio may not quite be fit to return, but the signing of Les Ferdinand from Tottenham is likely. The club's disappointments are monotonous and something needs to change soon if they are to stay in the top flight.
ARSENAL: Seaman, Lauren, Keown, Campbell, van Bronckhorst, Wiltord (Jeffers 87), Silva, Edu (Parlour 68), Pires, Henry, Bergkamp (Luzhny 87). Subs Not Used: Taylor, Toure. Booked: Bergkamp, Lauren, Parlour. Goals: Henry 14 pen, 71, 86.
WEST HAM UNITED: James, Breen, Pearce, Dailly, Winterburn (Minto 82), Bowyer, Lomas, Cisse (Moncur 85), Sinclair, Cole, Defoe. Subs Not Used: Hutchison, Van Der Gouw, Johnson. Sent Off: Lomas (13). Booked: Breen. Goal: Defoe 40.
Refereee: M Dean (Wirral)
