Blackburn 1 : Arsenal 2

Arsenal maintained their early season title credentials with a hard-fought 2-1 win at Blackburn Rovers on Saturday.

The home side put up a brave fight against their unbeaten opponents and will welcome a first ever Premier League goal from young Senegalese striker, Mame Biram Diouf.

Arsenal, however, had just enough to claim the points after Theo Walcott put the finishing touch to a superb breakaway goal to open the scoring before Andrey Arshavin fired the winner just after the interval.

Christopher Samba wasted a great chance to break through in the 17th minute when the Rovers captain rose unchallenged to head a left wing corner over Manuel Almunia's bar.

And Arsenal made them pay after 20 minutes with a sublime seven pass counter attack that began at one end of the pitch with Almunia's short ball out of his area and ended at the other with Walcott firing inside Paul Robinson's far post to put the visitors in front.

Rovers bounced back seven minutes later as El Hadji Diouf outmuscled Laurent Koscielny along the left and squared inside for Biram Diouf to slot home, adding to his Carling Cup hat-trick against Norwich City in midweek.

After an evenly contested first half, the game swung back to the visitors on 52 minutes when Arshavin pounced on a rebounded shot following a right wing run and cross by Bacary Sagna.

Rovers' best chance of a second equalizer disappeared with injury time penalty appeals for fouls on El Hadji Diouf and Steven Nzonzi both ignored by referee Chris Foy.