City had Callum Davidson back though, and Ben Thatcher as Captain. Definately a line up that looked like they wouldn't take any prisoners. And they didn't. Totally focussed from kick off and chasing every ball. Closed down the Arse and constantly pushed them back and wouldn't let them play. The likes of Pires and Ljungberg didn't get a look in and didn't like it up 'em. City went closest first, with Jamie Scowcroft rising majestically (no really, it was great!) and directing a bullet header just wide across goal instead of in.

The first half was really rather devoid of anything else of note other than really thick Leicester fans booing Pires for being French (er, hello, Lilian Nalis, anyone?? Gonna boo him too are ya? Muppets) and doing dambusters to Lehmann. Why is racism on the increase at Leicester games?

Half time saw Birchy drag out Jon Sammels as the Leicester / Arse legend, and none other than Sir Geoff Hurst to present him with his ashtray / fruitbowl thing. Birch had a go at Sir Geoff for nicking his world cup winners medal and accused him of only scoring a hat-trick in the 1966 final...when he'd have scored 4. Birch also announced there were 32,108 there...a record for Filbert Way.

The second half was a lot more lively and Walker had to make a great diving save from Gilberto. A minute later down at the Kop end Marcus Bent was possibly up-ended by Sol Campbell in the penalty area. The City fans erupted but the ref didn't give the pen.

Then it all kicked off when Ferdinand went in on the Arse keeper Lehmann. There was huffing and puffing and Ferdinand squared up to him. After a delayed reaction Lehmann leapt backwards and crashed to the floor...inciting the Kop to scream abuse and / or laugh hysterically at his dreadful acting.

Rob Styles, give him his due, was great and did a fine impression of Lehmann's very bad diving before booking him. Ferdinand also got a yellow for squaring up to him, which was probably fair enough.

What wasn't ok was the chant "Stand up if you hate Germans", from the Kop though. Just no need.

"Same old Arsenal, always cheating" yelled the City fans, and the Arse got mardier and mardier as they couldn't break through our battling midfield and stunning defence.

The only thing the Gooners could do though was counter attack. And at odd times we saw some swift flowing football as they whizzed down to the Lineker stand. Our defence finally were beaten after an hour as Pires passed to Bergkamp who crossed for Gilberto to fire home. We sat and sulked. Not a fair reflection of the game so far at all, especially not after their cheating.

The Arse fans finally managed a song..."Premiership, you're having a laugh." which got the City fans backs up. Are the Arse turning into arrogant Manc scummers? Looks like it. That got us singing again and urging the lads on.

The Arse, for a few minutes, looked like they were going to start dominating, and there was some football ping pong in our goal mouth as Walker pushed it onto the post for it to come back out and McKinlay eventually clear off the line. Phew.

Then it all kicked off agaim. Ben Thatcher was waltzing down the East Stand touchline having had an awesome game once more, when Ashley "going for twat of the year award already" Cole lunged in with a two footed tackle. The stadium erupted and bayed for blood as Snatch rolled in agony. Again Mr Styles was great and had his red card out before most of us had had time to leap out of our seats. Paul Dickov had managed to sprint the 50 yards to the incident in a world record best of 3 nanno seconds to have Cole though, and pretty quickly everyone had piled in and it was chaos. Cole wouldn't go, which got the City fans even more worked up.

Time slowly ticked away, and despite Arse only having 10 men, City still couldn't finish it off. Lehmann, public enemy number 1, gathered every ball in the air easily though and as we got into the last 3 minutes we were looking at being undeservedly robbed of any points. 3 minutes of stoppage time and it was all Leicester. With a minute to go Andrew Impey hoofed a ball up. It was headed down by James Scowcroft... and sub Craig Hignett popped his toe forward to poke home. Filbert Way went nuts.

"Champions League, you're having a laugh!" sang the City fans to the Arse fans.

Man of the Match - Callum Davidson.