Gunners record goes by the wayside

The home side were rewarded for their incredible work rate with an early Stewart Downing penalty and a second-half strike from Tuncay Sanli, who may finally be the solution to the club's goalscoring problems.

Tomas Rosicky maintained Arsenal's record of scoring in every Premier League game this season with a stoppage-time consolation but it was more than they deserved.

Gunners manager Arsene Wenger arguably did his best to soften up opposite number Southgate earlier in the week by including the Boro boss among his list of potential new England managers. The tactic failed as Southgate's men began determined to emulate the high-intensity game that saw north-east neighbours Newcastle snatch a draw against the same opponents in midweek.

It paid off as early as the third minute when the recalled Gary O'Neil's ball sent Jeremie Aliadiere into the area and Kolo Toure clumsily brought down his former team-mate, who was going away from goal. Referee Howard Webb rightly pointed to the spot and Downing applied just enough pace on his penalty to beat Manuel Almunia low to his left.

Arsenal were rattled but could have levelled when top scorer Emmanuel Adebayor was just beaten to Bacary Sagna's cross by the fist of rookie goalkeeper Ross Turnbull, who continued to deputise for the injured Mark Schwarzer.

Boro were pressing from front to back and it was hard to see how they could maintain such a frenetic pace, although they almost doubled their advantage soon after the break when Fabio Rochemback capped a thrilling run with the perfect through ball to Tuncay. With only Almunia to beat, the Turk's cross-shot screwed agonisingly wide of the far post.

Wenger had seen enough, throwing on Denilson for Lassana Diarra and Theo Walcott for Emmanuel Eboue. The danger for Arsenal was leaving themselves exposed at the back and almost as soon as Robert Huth was brought on for Jonathan Woodgate 17 minutes from time, Boro scored again.

A corner was not cleared properly and O'Neil's first-time shot was too hot for Almunia, whose parry was powered into the roof of the net by Tuncay, via a slight nick off Gallas.

Boro had the points in the bag long before Rosicky turned in Clichy's cross deep into stoppage-time.