AT ANY NEW GROUND, LANDMARKS are two a penny. First goal, first penalty, first full house, etc. As the Emirates Stadium registered a record attendance of 60,047 on Saturday, it witnessed another, less memorable, milestone: the first time that Thierry Henry, the Arsenal captain, had been jeered by the home fans.

Henry is an Arsenal icon. Few could remember if he had ever been booed in his seven years at Highbury, the club’s former HQ a short hop from Ashburton Grove. Yet as he lazily lost possession in the 66th minute, wasting the good work of Tomas Rosicky, boos rained down from the top tiers.

It might have been collective frustration at Arsenal’s failure to cut through Everton’s nagging resilience; it might have been an expression of dismay at Arsenal’s penchant for six passes when two will do. Over-elaboration is fine when the opposition are meek and mild, as in the 4-0 away win against Reading in their previous outing in the Barclays Premiership.

Whatever. Henry, on one of his can’t-get-going days, was the target and the supporters let him know it — “Excusez-moi, Thierry, that’s just not good enough.” In response, Henry, as always, stuck to his principles, defending the beautiful game to the hilt and decrying the kick-and-block style of lesser mortals.

“I would die rather than do that, playing that type of football,” he said. “There are no questions about that, no questions. Fans are fans and like to express the way they feel. That’s the way it is.

“I keep on hearing them shout ‘shoot’, but I don’t really know what they’re trying to say or trying to do. But I think they’re just getting sucked in by what some people are saying. We scored some amazing goals at Reading and nobody said ‘shoot’ then.”

Despite their obsession with multi-pass moves, Arsenal did shoot, on many occasions and from many angles, but Tim Howard, the Everton goalkeeper, was in exhilarating form, beating away the ball whenever it entered his usually well-protected domain. Five minutes after Henry had been berated, the Frenchman flicked a metaphorical V-sign at the moaning masses by conjuring an equaliser with Robin van Persie.

Rosicky tumbled under the challenge of Lee Carsley and, after Henry and Van Persie had pondered the possibilities, it was the Dutchman who rifled the free kick past Howard. “We had a discussion about it on purpose,” Henry said. “It took us a long time to choose who would take it, but that was the plan, to make sure the goalkeeper didn’t know who was going to hit it. Maybe he was expecting me, not Robin, to take it.”

Everton had a cunning plan. too. Racked by injuries and illness, there was little point in taking on Arsenal expansively in their own backyard. So David Moyes, the manager, deployed Tim Cahill as a fifth midfield player, Andrew Johnson roamed alone up front and also tracked back earnestly, the defence shut up shop.

It was unsightly yet effective, with Moyes making no apologies. “Part of my job is to find ways of getting a result against the better teams,” he said. “We tried to stifle Arsenal, we had to play as tight as we could in the middle, we had to stop them playing. I’d like to play in a different way, but, today, that’s what we had to do.”

Moyes was banished from the touchline when pointing to his watch too feverishly as the match reached a scrappy conclusion — “There was no foul language,” he said — and Everton secured a deserved point courtesy of Cahill’s early goal, his seventh of the season. From Mikel Arteta’s corner, the attacking midfield player inadvertently controlled the ball with his midriff before lashing it into the roof of the net.

Arsène Wenger, the Arsenal manager, bemoaned Everton’s time-wasting tactics but conceded: “Overall, they played in a fair spirit.”

Alan Stubbs, the Everton centre back, got it spot on. “They huffed and puffed at times but we kept our shape and discipline,” he said. “You always tend to look at Arsenal as a team that wants to score the perfect goal. We just did what we had to.”

Arsenal remain unbeaten at the Emirates, despite also dropping two points against Aston Villa and Middlesbrough, and remain in contention for the Premiership title. Yet if they continue to strive for perfection, instead of winning crash-bash ugly, they might drop off the pace. And what verbals will Henry receive then?