Vieira turns up heat to freeze out Bolton

Patrick Vieira spent yesterday morning with ice packed around his considerably swollen right ankle. The same routine, in fact, that he has followed for some two months. The pain was eased with the knowledge of a place in the FA Cup semi-finals had been secured following a 1-0 win at Bolton on Saturday - a match that Vieira insisted he should play in because of its importance to the club.

After the Champions League exit three days earlier and with the Premiership title a fading dream as Arsenal slip further behind Chelsea, the FA Cup has taken on a whole new meaning at Highbury - and Vieira insisted he would be part of it.

Suggestions in recent weeks that he should take a break have been met with a "don't even think about it" glare. That is why he went through two hours of a fifth round replay at Sheffield United and insisted he played against Stoke and Wolves in earlier encounters.

It has to be stressed that Vieira is doing no further harm to his ankle by playing. Neither manager Arsene Wenger nor his medical team would allow that. But a rest would do no harm and certainly prevent the morning after ordeal with the ice. Vieira, however, takes his responsibilities as captain seriously and is willing to suffer the discomfort and pain for the Arsenal cause.

"After a game like the Bayern one, the manager and the captain have a big role to play," said Vieira after Freddie Ljungberg's early strike proved enough to take Arsenal into their fifth successive semi-final.

It was an afternoon when the entire Arsenal team had to show the

substance and the fibre which many thought had disappeared from their game. The in-your-face football of Bolton is intimidating and unnerving but Arsenal - led by Vieira - stood firm. Philippe Senderos was colossal, Gael Clichy showed amazing maturity and Jose Reyes ran himself into the ground. Robert Pires glided across the ground with devastating effect.

There were the predictable accusations of diving foreigners from Bolton manager Sam Allardyce and the most vehement of them were directed at goalkeeper Jens Lehmann, who had the temerity to need treatment after he was hit by El Hadji Diouf.

That's the same Diouf who spat at Celtic fans and Portsmouth defender Arjan de Zeeuw, and dived spectacularly to earn a match-winning penalty at Blackburn. And a team-mate of that Israeli hardman Ben Haim - introduced into the Premiership by Allardyce and who famously hit the deck after a touch to the cheek by Wayne Rooney.

Diouf was sent off and Lehmann was barracked and battered for the rest of the game, but Arsenal came through the bombardment of their area and the controversy to win. Ljungberg was in no doubt about the critical nature of the win.

"Everybody was low after the Bayern Munich match and had to find a way to show we were mentally strong," said the Swedish midfield man, who was also guilty of one of the misses of the season in the last minute when he scooped the ball over the unguarded goal from two yards out.

"We went to Bolton with a lot of people saying that we didn't like the physical side of football and didn't fancy the hard stuff. That is the way they play. I think the way we played showed the guts we have got in the side, especially after what happened in midweek.

"We have shown that we can stand up and be counted. We knew it would be very physical because it is always hard to play there. We all knew how important it was and we could have come here and laid down and died and started feeling sorry for ourselves. But it was important that we stood up - and we did."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in