Look, shall we end this discussion once and for all? You know, the one about whether Arsenal can win ugly. After this, it can be fairly assumed that the answer is no. Arsenal cannot win ugly because their instincts will not allow them to. They can win playing beautifully, or they can win trying to play beautifully and coming up a little short, but ugly? Never. Even last night, after a poor first half against opponents painfully low on ambition, they could not manage the sort of cussed, dour, determined performance that made Chelsea champions two years on the trot under José Mourinho.

No, they went out in the second half and scored a pair of goals of such stunning aesthetic quality that, from just about any other team, they would form the headline items in the high-lights of the season DVD sold in the club shop during the summer.

Right now, Arsenal are like Jayne Mansfield in the film The Girl Can’t Help It. “The menfolk get engrossed,” sang Little Richard, “the bread slice turns to toast, the beef steak becomes well done, she makes grandpa feel 21 . . .”

This was not a vintage Arsenal performance by their standards, far from it. What was proven, however, is that it is not only Sir Alex Ferguson who gets a warm glow when he contemplates the future with talent at his disposal. Ferguson described his Manchester United squad as his finest yet after the win over Blackburn Rovers on Sunday; Wenger does not make claims on behalf of his Arsenal batch yet, but as they continue to rise above every challenge laid in their path, who knows what will be said of them by the end of the season?

Last night’s gauntlet came in the form of a Reading side whose sole ambition appeared to be a stupefying stalemate. At home, but sent out as if playing away, Reading deployed a five-man midfield protecting four at the back, with even Kevin Doyle, the lone striker, called upon to help on occasions, leaving Reading with 11 behind the ball.

For a while, it appeared to be working. Arsenal tried to play their lovely short passing game, but the radar was off. They got into positions around the Reading box, but the final passes went awry. They tried to find a way through the massed defensive hordes, but ran down blind alley after blind alley. Even Cesc Fàbregas could not find his men; even Alexander Hleb overran the ball.

And when Kolo Touré stepped up to take one of his famed long-range free kicks, his shot was sliced so spectacularly it struck an advertising hoarding two billboards away from Marcus Hahnemann’s goal.

It was hardly an uplifting sight, watching a Reading side that had played with so much attacking verve a year ago hanging on for grim death, but Steve Coppell, their manager, will no doubt counter that he was trying to square the obvious gulf in class. It did not work. Arsenal were ordinary in the first half but scored late and, Reading’s game plan ruined, Coppell’s team attempted to be slightly more adventurous in the second half, but were hit twice on the counter-attack. Were it not for an erroneous offside flag and some sloppy finishing, a convincing victory could have quickly turned into a rout. Perhaps it was for the best that from Arsenal’s first attack of the game, Emmanuel Adebayor hit a post. Had Reading been a goal behind after three minutes they could have been taken apart.

And, yes, it might have been the second-half goals that caught the eye, but everything that sets Arsenal apart was contained in the one that broke the deadlock, two minutes before half-time, from Mathieu Flamini.

That it should have been scored by, of all people, a defensive midfield player is tribute to the attacking ethos Wenger has instilled in his players. Flamini’s job is to break up play, much as Claude Makelele and John Obi Mikel do for Chelsea. Yet can you imagine either of them continuing a run into the opposing penalty box, starting and finishing a scoring move as Flamini did here? No, me neither. And there is the difference between Arsenal and the rest.

For the goal, Flamini won a tackle in the heart of the pitch and laid the ball off to Adebayor, who then found Hleb on the right. He squared a pass into the Reading penalty area where Flamini now appeared, striking a low shot past Hahnemann, the goalkeeper, for his first goal since December.

Stripped of caution - not much point trying to cling to a 1-0 defeat – Reading had little else to offer. Arsenal, meanwhile, were just warming up. In the 51st minute, Adebayor scored a second from the move of the match, another attack that began and ended with the same player, testament to the movement that is the key to Arsenal’s game.

Collecting the ball in midfield, Adebayor introduced Tomas Rosicky, before advancing into the area as Fàbregas laid off Rosicky’s cross, curling his shot past the stranded Hahnemann with the precision of a draughtsman. The game was as good as over.

With Arsenal playing now almost with a sense of fun, a third was added in the 77th minute when Brynjar Gunnarsson, desperately attempting to cut out a pass from Fàbregas, only succeeded in feeding it into Hleb’s path on the right.

Hleb sped into Reading’s area, drew Hahnemann, stopped the ball, showed it to him, then took it away again before lashing the finish into the roof of the net.

It was a joy to watch, like a sleight of hand card trick, but with the feet. By the time Reading scored a late goal through Nicky Shorey, their presence had long ceased to matter. All the football belonged to Arsenal, as did the points.

They returned to the top of the table having scored more goals than Manchester United, although no extra marks are given for artistic impression in football; for the rest of the Barclays Premier League, it is probably just as well.

Reading (4-5-1): M Hahnemann – G Murty, I Sonko, I Ingimarsson, N Shorey – R Convey (sub: J Oster, 70min), J Harper (sub: E Fae, 59), B Gunnarsson, S Hunt, D Kitson – K Doyle (sub: S Long, 83). Substitutes not used: A Bikey, A Federici. Booked: Gunnarsson.

Arsenal (4-4-1-1): M Almunia – B Sagna, K Touré, W Gallas, G Clichy - E Eboué, M Flamini, F Fàbregas, T Rosicky (sub: T Walcott, 83) – A Hleb (sub: L Diarra, 79) – E Adebayor (sub: N Bendtner, 83). Substitutes not used: J Lehmann, Gilberto Silva. Booked: Fàbregas.

Referee: R Styles.