Wiltord 2, Adams 5, Pires 36 Rovers Wilt SYLVAIN Wiltord and Robert Pires conspired to turn this football corner of North London into their own version of the French Riviera after supplying the Coup de Grace to Rovers' FA Cup hopes for another season.

It's 41 years since Blackburn last appeared in the semi-finals of what is arguably the most famous Cup competition on the planet.

But any thoughts the visiting fans harboured of a place in the last four were all but extinguished within the opening five minutes of this quarter final as goals from Wiltord and Tony Adams saw Rovers swept away by a red sea.

Arsenal were simply awesome as Graeme Souness's gameplan disintegrated quicker than a sandcastle at high tide.

And by the time Pires added a third nine minutes before the break, the Press gang infront of me were frantically phoning their editors trying to find out who held the record for the heaviest sixth round defeat.

"We always knew it was going to be a difficult game for us," said Souness.

"We were playing against a team that have four or five gears and, occasionally, they got into fifth gear here when they punished us for the first and the third goal.

"You have to say they were great finishes and it's difficult to execute those kind of chances.

"For our part, we were a wee bit naive at times but I can't be critical of my players because they were up against a marvellous Arsenal team."

There's no doubt Rovers have made great strides under Souness in the last 12 months after the former Anfield great inherited the mess left by Brian Kidd.

But the placard which greeted Rovers fans as they poured out of the tube station across the road from Highbury acted as a poignant reminder of the hard work still to be done: 'The Premiership -- it's a different planet.'

Few teams in the top-flight, let alone the First Division, can live with Arsenal when they're on song.

And Rovers' hopes of pulling off a giantkilling had evaporated before they had chance to work up a bead of sweat as the classy Gunners spectacularly clicked into top gear.

"It doesn't matter who you are playing against, it could be Romario, Rivaldo or Diego Maradona, you can make it a hard game if everyone is organised and does their job," said Henning Berg.

"But we made it hard for ourselves when we went 2-0 down in the opening five minutes.

"And you can't give any team a two goal start, never mind Arsenal.

"We got cut open all over the place in the first half and it looked like men against boys.

"But after the break, we were a lot better organised and we showed we can be a good team when we know what we are doing."

With just one defeat to show from their last 19 matches, Rovers boss Souness decided to stick with the 3-5-2 formation which has served him so well recently.

But they were left cruelly exposed by Arsenal's pace and invention down the flanks with Pires in particular exploiting the oceans of space left by Alan Mahon whenever the Irishman ventured forward.

And it was only when Souness switched to a more rigid 4-4-2 at half-time that Rovers finally discovered how to stem the tide.

"We'd spoken about playing 4-4-2 before the game but we've had a lot of good results playing the other way in our own league and I was a wee bit worried about what message that would send out to the players," said Souness.

"We didn't want to come here looking too negative or too frightened so we decided to leave things as they were."

The gulf in class was evident as Arsenal's speed of thought and invention left Rovers trailing in their wake in a blistering opening half hour. Wenger chose to rest his two key men in Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira but, sadly for the visitors, they came across Wiltord in white-hot form.

Ironically, Rovers could have made a dream start when Jason McAteer crossed for Marcus Bent but the nine-goal striker headed narrowly over inside the first minute.

But it took Wiltord just 75 seconds to extend an impressive record of scoring in every round when he swivelled on a low cross from Pires to sweep home an unstoppable right-footed shot inside Brad Friedel's left-hand post.

And it was game, set and match three minutes later Adams rose above Bent to power home a header from Ashley Cole's corner.

Clearly shellshocked, Rovers fought desperately to steady the ship.

But they were well and truly holed below the waterline on 36 minutes when Wiltord picked out Pires with a peach of a cross-field pass and the Frenchman expertly steered Arsenal's third past Friedel with his right foot.

In a bid to limit the damage, Souness threw on Stig Bjornebye and Damien Duff at half time as he switched formations in a quest for stability. And Rovers made a better show of it after the break as Jason McAteer had a 'goal' disallowed for handball.

Friedel, however, had to come to the rescue to block a Wiltord shot following Berg's sloppy backpass.

But the visitors mounted a late rally as David Seaman saved from David Dunn then Bent rattled a post with a vicious volley after a neat flick on from Jansen.

It was all in vain, however.

Now, to coin an old cliche, Rovers are free to concentrate on the League.

And Souness will not need to raise his troops ahead of the real challenge which awaits them at St Andrews on Wednesday night.

anield@newsquest.co.uk