Lokomotiv fail to derail Arsenal's Champions League hopes

Arsenal steadied their Champions League campaign holding out for a 0-0 draw with Russian outfit Lokomotiv Moscow in their Group B clash.

The injury-weakened Gunners could be happy with earning their first point after the 3-0 thrashing by Inter Milan in the opening match as they came back into the match in the second-half and could have won it had the French duo of Robert Pires and Sylvain Wiltord taken their chances.

Lokomotiv, who it is claimed had chosen their red and white colours when they were founded in 1936 in hommage to Arsenal - the dominant team in England at the time - could also curse their luck at not taking some of their chances and like Arsenal claimed their first point of the campaign.

Arsenal keeper Jens Lehmann had to be alert in the 54th minute as Dmitry Khlokov turned the defence and his pass across goal was deflected away from prying Russian players' boots by the German and Robert Pires hacked it clear.

Pires, though, was at fault at the other end when he found himself on a one on one with the goalkeeper after an excellent pass by Thierry Henry before seeing his shot blocked by Sergei Ovchennikov.

Arsenal were nearly made to pay for that glaring miss in the 58th minute when another nice move by the silky Russians saw Vladimir Maminov's long range effort just blocked by Lehmann, who was fortunate the ball did not rebound straight to a Lokomotiv player.

The Arsenal defence also were fortunate to escape in the 58th minute when they backed off playmaker Dmitry Loskov's run and were relieved to see his 25 yard effort sail over the bar.

Sylvain Wiltord made an even worse effort at trying to score after Ray Parlour somehow got the ball to him but the Frenchman could only backheel it out of the penalty area instead of simply toe-poking it into the goal.

Pires tried to rescue his team-mate's embarrassment by shooting on target from the inadvertent backheel but the Lokomotiv defence were able to somehow scramble it away after the ball had pinged round like a pinball.

However Wiltord's miss was matched when, with 12 minutes remaining, Loskov had all the time in the world to slot it past Lehmann but dallied too long and an Arsenal defender was able to block the ball and clear the danger.

Lokomotiv played the neater football in a scrappy first-half in which they had the patched-up Arsenal defence at sixes and sevens but their only worthwhile shot on target came from Loskov's freekick which scraped the crossbar.

The Russians' main failure was to finish off the incisive moves. They also came up against veteran centre back Martin Keown, who was on super form as he more than made up for the absence of Sol Campbell, who is mourning the death of his father, and marshalled his inexperienced partner Kolo Toure expertly.

Arsenal did come back into it in the latter part of the first period as first Ray Parlour and then Pires forced Ovchinnikov into smart saves - the latter forcing a corner and from which Toure's flashing header went agonisingly wide of the far post.