Arsenal 2 - 2 United
I was not as nervous as I should have been before this game. Arsenal have been enjoying all of the plaudits this season whilst we have simply been getting on with our jobs I thought. Hargreaves has done nothing to make me question him and I even felt, especially after last week, that Anderson standing next to him would present no problems at all. I would also have taken a draw before the game, we all would.
Anderson’s cheeky head-butt on Abedayor in the first minute endeared him to me immensely, as did our ability to score a late goal. And it is possible that I am viewing the world through red-tinted glasses, but we seemed to control large spells of a game at the home of the Champions League’s most prolific scorers. That is certainly not bad, losing a late late goal always hurts but in a pure sense there are many reasons to be pleases about this result, right?
So why am I not that pleased right now? Because to win the big trophies, the League and the European Cup, you need a combination of three things. Inspiration, luck and belief. United displayed some inspired football on saturday with Rooney’s flick for Giggs sticking most prominently in the memory, but so did Arsenal. We were lucky too courtesy of Gallas’ handball skills, but so were Arsenal.
For ninety three minutes though, I was beginning to convince myself that this team is emerging as a great Old Trafford side, it almost certainly is, we believed we could just go to the Emirates and win. For ninety three minutes we showed that we could. And then they scored.
I am certain that in the league United have the belief to go with their talents, but the problem is so now do our main rivals, and we gave it to them.