SUNDERLAND 1, ARSENAL 1

IT WASN’T exactly the Highbury tunnel of January 2005, it wasn’t quite Roy Keane telling Patrick Vieira who the governor really was.

But the put-down of an Arsenal great was just as brutal in its own dismissive way.

“Arsene should be focused on his own team,” said Keane after Wenger had exported his sour grapes to the Stadium of Light.

And the Sunderland manager was as accurate and as target-hitting as the wonderful blast from Grant Leadbitter — a strike that was only cancelled out in the final seconds as a rare Cesc Fabregas header rescued the Gunners.

Keane had been rightly irked by Wenger’s whingeing about home tactics. “They just gave us the ball and said ‘we are happy with a 0-0’,” claimed the Frenchman.

“And they nearly got a 1-0. Was it a fair result? It was a result.

“I like to think that the team that shows the initiative will get rewarded."

Sunderland defensive? Yes. Without initiative? Certainly not.

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They broke effectively enough to shade the chances contest by about four to three.

“What should we do? I remember playing 4-4-2 against Manchester United and we got beaten 4-0 and it could have been seven,” said Keano, whose own initiative gave us the fine sight of Dwight Yorke strutting in front of his own back four.

Unlike some, I’ve always seen Yorke as a holding player. Holding a blonde, holding a brunette, holding a pina colada.

He has taken to the role on the field like an ageing Premier League star to a nightspot.

The biggest compliment you can pay him is that, in thought, he was a yard ahead of Fabregas — whose relative anonymity this season is becoming something of a concern for Wenger.

Not that he betrayed those worries when eulogising about his equaliser.

“It showed that Cesc is not only a great footballer but a great winner as well,” said the Arsenal manager. But Fabregas — as if out of sympathy for his team-mates — was struggling until those dying seconds, when he smuggled himself in to a yard of near-post space and converted Robin van Persie’s cross for an equaliser every bit as dramatic as the Sunderland strike that preceded it.

With the game in its final, tired throes — and the bright lights of downtown flickering to life — Yorke took his leave.

On came local hero Leadbitter who, after shrugging off a half-hearted challenge from Alex Song, took a Giovanni-style punt from 25 yards out.

Hull’s hero was Brazilian, Sunderland’s born and bred in the North East — but both strikes were plucked from the top drawer.

What a shame that Leadbitter was the man who had been detailed to guard the diminutive Fabregas at the injury-time corner.

Fodder

“He has no reason to be gutted,” said Keane. “None of our players have any reason to be gutted. That sort of thing happens. I was pleased with our performance. I thought we were good when we had the ball and we defended well.”

A simple and accurate analysis.

Sunderland may not have been brimming with ambition but, essentially, they were ultra-disciplined rather than ultra-defensive.

And as Keane so pointedly suggested, Wenger would be better served reflecting on inadequacies that have now seen Arsenal drop a combined eight points against Fulham, Hull and Sunderland.

A combined eight points against a trio that should be mere fodder for title-contenders.

He did offer some explanation for a display that lacked, mental, physical and tactical agility, saying: “After a Champions League game, we are either sharp or flat — and today I thought we were a bit flat.”

But that is too broad an excuse. There are too many individuals who are too erratic for a team that has realistic title pretensions.

Worryingly, one of them is Theo Walcott, who yesterday was the player we saw out there on that memorable night Zagreb — the player for the 20 minutes BEFORE the hat-trick.

The one that stands on the ball as many times as he controls it, the one who puts things out more often than your average fireman.

Defenders close down quicker than banks in the Premier League and there remains a school of thought that, at the moment, Walcott’s talents are more suited to international football than club football.

“I thought he looked tired — especially in the first half,” said Wenger. Which begs the question, why did he leave him on for the second?

Walcott was involved in the one controversial incident of the match when, for once, he got beyond George McCartney only for assistant referee Jake Collin to rule that the ball had drifted out before the winger had pulled it back for Van Persie to hammer home.

Replays showed the whole sphere had not crossed the whitewash.

“If I had two video appeals I would have used one,” said Wenger.

Van Persie was denied again when Craig Gordon made a good close-range block — a save that looked all the more crucial when Leadbitter announced his arrival.

But the Sunderland keeper must take his share of the blame for allowing the smallest chap on the pitch to nick that leveller.

“I actually don't know whether it was a good point or a bad point,” said Wenger.

Well, if you harbour any serious hopes of keeping up with the giants of the Premier League, if you honestly believe this type of football can bring silver to the table, then there is only one type of point this is.

And you suspect Wenger knows it.

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