Date: 11th December 2010 at 12:15pm
Written by:

As Arsenal prepare themselves for what is always one of the biggest fixtures of the year, I’m preparing for my annual feeling of pride in our performance, but also the pain of the result.

It’s nice to say I’m not particularly worried about how we’ll play at Old Trafford on Monday, because in recent times we’ve shown up there and played Man Utd off the park. The sad thing is we rarely get the result.

The reasons are all too familiar, of course: bad finishing, defensive errors, but more often than that there have unfortunately been a lot of questionable refereeing decisions in the home side’s favour.

I said after their controversial win over Spurs this season that without the special help United get from referees you could cut their trophy cabinet in half, and with their points gained against Arsenal you could probably cut off even more.

Man Utd 2-0 Arsenal 02/03: Okay, so we didn’t play brilliantly that day, but neither did they and there’s every reason to believe we could have gone on to win or certainly draw if not for the ridiculous first goal scored by United. I’m sure you all remember it: handball by van Nistelrooy before he passes to a clearly offside Scholes who squares for Veron of all people to net a rare goal for United. Sure, there was a very poor clearance from Pascal Cygan before all that, but the extent to which we are punished for mistakes like that against United is ridiculous, especially as there were two reasons to blow the whistle before the ball found the back of the net that day.

Man Utd 0-0 Arsenal 03/04: They didn’t beat us on this occasion, but the referee did everything in his power to try and make sure they did; a very harsh sending off for Vieira, and a ridiculous stoppage time penalty. Thankfully all it did was provide us gooners with one of the finest memories of the unbeaten season – van Nistelrooy’s penalty against the crossbar!

Man Utd 2-0 Arsenal 04/05: Sadly, while the horse faced man kept our record intact the season before, his penalty sent us crashing in one of the most horrible Arsenal games I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to complain when you’ve just completed the longest unbeaten run in the history of English football, but one can’t help but feel that without United’s 12th man Mike Riley that day the run could have gone on much longer. I’m not exaggerating when I say United should have had four players sent off that day, and their penalty clearly should not have been awarded. We gave them a taste of their own medicine in the FA Cup final that year, though, sneaking it on an undeserved penalty shootout win. Famous now, of course, for being the last time we won a trophy.

Man Utd 2-0 Arsenal 05/06: Strangely, this was not a vital game for either side as Chelsea were well clear in the title race, and Arsenal had the Champions League to worry about. However, with a relatively weakened team we still outplayed them for much of this game, but were made to pay for our many missed chances.

Man Utd 0-1 Arsenal 06/07: An absolutely brilliant performance which could easily have been 3 or 4 nil to us, but with a missed penalty and a host of other chances, it still took until the 86th minute for us to scrape the win.

Man Utd 2-1 Arsenal 07/08: Having given everything only to lose 4-2 to Liverpool in the Champions League just days earlier, we somehow managed to do the same thing again here. We absolutely carved them open in the first half but just could not finish. Eventually a controversial decision went our way as Adebayor scored with his hand, but don’t worry, the ref more than evened things up just minutes later by giving them a pretty harsh penalty (which they were allowed to take twice, of course) and then an even more harsh freekick for Owen Hargreaves to end our title challenge for that year.

Man Utd 0-0 Arsenal 08/09: Another fine showing from the team considering how low on confidence we must have been. Sadly a point was all United needed for the title, but we gave them more than a few nervy moments that day, but, as ever, for no reward.

Man Utd 2-1 Arsenal 09/10: Another fantastic performance, another lead taken, more missed chances, another unfair penalty to United, a ridiculous own goal from Diaby…you get the idea by now.

We haven’t looked brilliant in recent games, but results breed confidence, and I think we can take plenty of that to Old Trafford next week, and have every reason to expect big game performances from everyone.

Something will go wrong, though, somehow. Fabianski has gone a suspiciously long time without making a mistake…

Seriously, though, some of the predictions out there from certain bloggers that we will get ‘crushed’ are ridiculous. I know we CAN win this game. We’ve been better than them this season and have many attacking players in good form, so a little luck for a change is all we need to make sure it’s a good evening.

 

Comments are closed.