What's Up: Arsenal vs Leeds, 21st August 2001

Leeds United had just finished their best European campaign in recent memory. Since spending £18m on Rio Ferdinand, their Premier League form had been worthy of a title. Robbie Keane's £12m transfer was confirmed in the summer, giving Leeds one of the most formidable attacks in the country. Morale was high; the papers were lapping up photos of Ian Harte driving a yellow Reliant Robin after being elected the week's worst trainer. The Premiership had a new look on a new channel, Des Lynam hosting the primetime highlights at 7pm on ITV with Andy Townsend in a Tactics Truck, and Leeds were tipped to be champions. A UEFA Cup adventure offered another route to glory, and Peter Ridsdale was speaking confidently about the future, and building a brand new stadium 'for free' with sponsors' money.

So what was up with them?

Southampton were beaten on the opening day at Elland Road, although it took a brave strike from Lee Bowyer and a supersub appearance from Alan Smith, replacing Keane, to raise the game from its dull grind. A win was a win, but the performance underwhelmed fans who had come flocking to Elland Road to see David O'Leary and Eddie Gray's vivacious young team bringing in the new millennium. In 2001 a bench reshuffle brought Brian Kidd closer to O'Leary, and with him the idea that the babies now had to grow up, prove the worth of the investment made in them, and win something.

At Highbury, they looked like a bunch of moody teenagers, and not only on the pitch.

"Tackle one," said Andy Gray, commentating on Sky. "23 seconds in." Mark Viduka had hit Robert Pires with a late foul, and the tone was set, if history hadn't already done that. Working backwards, the bookings count was 4-3 to the home team in Arsenal's 2-1 win at Highbury in May; Martin Keown was still awaiting an FA hearing about elbowing Mark Viduka in that one. When Leeds had won 1-0 at Elland Road, Arsenal took the yellow honours, 7-1, plus an FA charge against Patrick Vieira for kicking Olivier Dacourt in the throat as he fell in a tackle, and O'Leary's complaint that Robert Pires had called him a 'whore'. In April 2000, in Leeds' 4-0 defeat at Elland Road, Harte was sent off before half-time; in December 1999 Arsenal won 2-0 at Highbury but lost 4-3 on bookings; and on the famous night in May 1999 when Jimmy Hasselbaink denied Arsenal a title in the 86th minute, the yellow cards ended Leeds 4-5 Arsenal. That had origins in the previous December's game at Highbury, when Gilles Grimandi was sent off for headbutting Smith in a 3-1 Arsenal win.

The fixture was a powder keg filled with fireworks wired up to a detonator in the hands of a toddler. Or Danny Mills, who pushed Ashley Cole over for no reason as he took a throw-in in the fifth minute. Leeds seemed determined to play the occasion and push referee Jeff Winter as far as they could, a cliff edge they reached in the seventh minute, when Eirik Bakke was booked for a foul on Ray Parlour. Two minutes later Dacourt was booked for his second late foul on Vieira, three minutes after that Bowyer took a yellow for going in late on Lauren, and four minutes after that Mills had an overdue card for going over the top on Freddie Ljungberg. Leeds had picked up four bookings in ten minutes and Mills kept trying his luck, trampling over Thierry Henry.