Manchester United - Arsenal Preview & STATS

Manchester United & Arsenal can reignite
timeless rivalry
Arsene Wenger's men are eight points
clear of the Premier League champions
ahead of their trip to Old Trafford, with a
potential power shift setting the stage for
a titanic battle
It has been rather too
easy to forget just how
significant the rivalry between Manchester
United and Arsenal was to English football as
we moved from old millennium to new.
And significant, really, is the only word for it.
From 1997 to 2004, nobody broke the Sir Alex
Ferguson/Arsene Wenger-led duopoly that
dominated the Premier League title race.
Nobody, in real terms, even came close.
"If you look at our history prior to Jose
Mourinho's arrival at Chelsea, there was no
consistent threat to our dominance outside
of Arsenal," wrote Ferguson in his recent
autobiography. Alongside the Portuguese,
Wenger is the only other manager afforded a
chapter to himself in the book.
Yet it was more than just two great teams
under two great managers playing two
distinctive and nonetheless still brilliant
styles of football. It mattered. We cared
because, so clearly, they did.
From only six months into Wenger's tenure
in north London, when Ferguson described
the Frenchman as a "novice" to, well, just
over a fortnight ago and the release of the
former United boss's book, in which he
criticises, amongst other things, the Arsenal
man's ability to produce his own players, it
was a rivalry that brought the best and, more
enthrallingly, the worst out of both clubs.
The soap opera-style, up-and-at-'em nadir
came at Old Trafford 10 years ago, in a game
that Sky's Martin Tyler described at the time
as "for 75 minutes a football match and then
it became a feud". Or, for the headline
writers ever since: The Battle of Old Trafford.
It will forever be weaved into the English
football tapestry. Martin Keown, arms
outstretched and neck veins on the precipice
of popping, jumping at and onto Ruud van
Nistelrooy after the Dutchman missed a
penalty that was to be the last kick of a 0-0
draw.
And then all hell broke loose. Gary Neville
pushed Keown, Lauren pushed Ryan Giggs,
Cristiano Ronaldo pushed Lauren and repeat
ad infinitum. It was a cartoon dust cloud
short of a full-on brawl and, save for the FA
disciplinary panel, who fined Arsenal and
number of players from both sides upwards
of £275,000, we loved it. Again, we cared.
Eight months later and Arsenal were The
Invincibles. The unbeaten Premier League
champions. Wenger's third and, at time of
writing, last league title.
In the following season of 2004-05, United
stopped the Gunners from making it 50
games unbeaten in the league, at the cost of
Ferguson's suit, which was ruined by a slice
of Hawaiian pizza flung by a teenage Cesc
Fabregas during another post-match brawl in
an image so brilliant that you are almost glad
that it never found its way onto the TV
cameras.
The game at Highbury that season was also
won by United after Roy Keane – the 5ft 10in
Roy Keane – challenged Patrick Vieira (6ft
4in) to pick on someone his own size in the
tunnel ahead of the match, after the
Frenchman allegedly provoked Gary Neville.
But by then had come the shift - or
Mourinho, as he is otherwise known. His
Chelsea side embarrassed the warring pair
from north London and Manchester and had
their first title in 50 years wrapped up by
April. And as the Keanes, Keowns and Vieiras
quietly drifted away, the venom soon
followed.
The old enemies have not ever really been
the same since. Wenger's side, consigned to
the relative tundra of fourth and occasionally
third place since 2005, became by and large
become an afterthought for a United side
preoccupied by the new-monied Chelsea and
Manchester City. Over the last five years,
Arsenal have finished on average 15 points
behind the club whom, for the best part of a
decade, they dominated alongside and
battled against.
It all became a bit ... nice. Wenger or his
then-assistant, Pat Rice, returned to
Ferguson's office after matches between the
two for wine and a chat and the Scot spoke
of his sympathy for his opposite number
after United systematically blew the Gunners
to pieces in an 8-2 battering at Old Trafford
in 2011. Even United's signing of Robin van
Persie – surely the most significant transfer
between two English clubs in over a decade-
was met amicably by an Arsenal outfit
resigned to the fact that they had indeed
fallen behind.
But they are back. Unquestionably so. A win
at Old Trafford for Wenger's side on Sunday
would see them move 11 points clear of their
hosts after as many games. It would not only
be unprecedented, it is almost unthinkable.
Yet a win away to Borussia Dortmund on
Wednesday and the five-point gap at the top
of the table upon which Arsenal are currently
sat, coupled with the fact that David Moyes
has not yet beaten a team currently placed
higher than 13th in the league, give the
game an unusual air of role reversal. United
are in dangerous territory of being left
behind.
And so once more to that word, 'significant',
and to a fixture that had for too long felt
anything but. Manchester United v Arsenal is
now again on top billing. The Battle of Old
Trafford is back.

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