SO ARSENAL saved the best until last, if not in terms of style then at least in significance. The lights went out at Highbury for ever last night, with Arsène Wenger’s team on the brink of their first European Cup final.

Put your money on Arsenal to reach Paris and, on this performance, leave it on Brazil rather than Argentina to win the World Cup this summer. So comprehensively did Gilberto Silva, the man of the match, snuff out the threat of Juan Román Riquelme that the Argentina camp might have thrown in the towel on that South American duel.

Gilberto was one of the senior Arsenal players who was underperforming so badly a few months ago, failing to put in the hard miles against ordinary but more committed opponents, but this remarkable European odyssey has restored his World Cup-winning lustre. He was ably supported by a record-breaking defence — make that nine clean sheets and counting in this competition — and the rest of an indefatigable five-man midfield.

Arsenal’s journey now takes them to a small town near Valencia that is home to the Spanish equivalent of Blackburn Rovers, a team built on the money of a local entrepreneur, and they should travel without fear. The one-goal margin is narrower than it might have been, but the damage inflicted on Villarreal went beyond Kolo Touré’s first-half goal.

The rash of bookings for ill-tempered opponents reflected their frustration at being outplayed, as well as the idiosyncracies of the Austrian referee. Psychological wounds were inflicted and Manuel Pellegrini, Villarreal’s Chilean coach, has only six days to work out how to punch a way through Arsenal’s blanket midfield.

They have known grander, more dramatic occasions — such as against Real Madrid and Juventus in previous rounds — but the Highbury crowd can never have seen their team play with such diligence. It is not just craft but graft that has carried Arsenal so far in the Champions League.

The absence of the suspended José Antonio Reyes and, according to Wenger, some tiredness caused by a run of tough matches, may have slightly blunted their attacking play, but their concentration never wavered. Not even when a squirrel invaded the pitch, presumably impatient for the time when Highbury’s turf is turned into a communal garden.

Alexander Hleb, eventually withdrawn with exhaustion, was one of Gilberto’s most dogged colleagues, rushing back to close down Riquelme on one of the few occasions that the elusive playmaker wriggled free. And when Villarreal tried another swift break, it was Robert Pires, reinvented as a tough-tackling midfield player, who was alert to the gathering menace.

Such an urgent approach should have brought Arsenal a goal before Touré’s intervention. They began at breakneck speed, creating mayhem in the Villarreal penalty area, and it took only 12 minutes for Thierry Henry to place the ball past Mariano Barbosa, the stand-in goalkeeper. The referee’s assistant waved for offside but replays would show that it was Fredrik Ljungberg rather than Henry who was too far advanced.

Arsenal were never likely to sustain that early momentum but, even when it lagged, they managed to dominate. Riquelme was being ambushed by several redcurrant shirts every time he picked up possession and it was only from powerful, but long-range, free kicks that he was managing to threaten Jens Lehmann.

Having paused for breath, Arsenal began to pick up speed again heading towards the interval. Most of the danger had come from that familiar channel down the left and, racing round the back of the Villarreal defence, Henry won the corner that would serve them so well.

With the set-piece headed straight back to Henry, the captain slid his pass through to Hleb. Villarreal launched their offside trap momentarily too late and the Belarussian, full of penetrative passing and running, crossed for Touré to turn the ball in from six yards.

It was an advantage that Arsenal deserved, although one that they might have lost just before half-time when Gilberto felled José Mari. It looked a penalty and Riquelme, booked for his protests, clearly thought so. Nothing much was going right for the Argentinian.

It was going to take another goal, at least, for Wenger to be fully satisfied with his night’s work, but a clean sheet was just as important. And Gilberto’s clumsy challenge aside, there was surprisingly little threat from the visiting team.

Renowned for their patient South American build-up and then the rapier thrust to score, they were being denied the opportunity to spend any time on the ball. Arsenal were suffocating them in midfield, with the result that Diego Forlán was almost as anonymous as he had been in his time on the bench at Manchester United. And when the ball was slipped through to the Uruguayan, Lehmann, eager for some action, was quick to cover.

If there was frustration for Arsenal, it was only in the failure to double their lead. Emmanuel Eboué, on one of his charges forward, crossed for Henry but the cutback was just behind the Frenchman, who could only loop a gentle attempt at a shot through the air but, by any estimation, this counted as a good night’s work.

NICE ONE, SQUIRREL

PERHAPS attracted by Jens Lehmann’s reputation for going nuts in his penalty area, a squirrel invaded the pitch at Highbury in the first half last night. Much like Diego Forlán, the Villarreal forward, it scurried around the Arsenal penalty area but to no lasting effect. It evaded any attempts at man-marking before streaking off the pitch after about ten minutes. Even without the presence of Francis Jeffers, the former Arsenal “fox in the box”, rodent incursions are not uncommon in football. A Burton Albion defender noted after their FA Cup game against Manchester United last January that Old Trafford’s surface was full of mice.

TOM DART