Manchester United 2-1 Arsenal – 29/08/09 – (Premier League) 30 August, 2009

Well what a disappointing ending that was then. A fantastic strike from Arshavin to put us 1-0 up and comfortable in the game at Man United’s own ground before two lucky goals leave us with 0 points to take back to North London.

It was just one of those days really.

The opening stages of the game were as you’d expect, tight, tense and neither team taking any risks. It looked as if the first half was going to end a stalemate at 0-0, there had been a few chances but you couldn’t really say either team especially deserved the lead over the other.

Then, about six or seven minutes before half time Andrey Arshavin picked up the ball in the box. However before he even had time to think about what to do next in came the committed Darren Fletcher in what is one of the worst challenges I have even seen inside the box. He literally slid right through him completely taking Arshavin out and the only contact he made with the ball was when his elbow touched it as he was clean underneath our Russian.

I’m not saying there was intent to hurt Andrey in the challenge but he was certainly lucky to come out completely fine, if he had of been stood any different we could be talking about his broken leg today.

So anyway I immediately jumped up shouting, “PENALTY?!!” (to the television screen) and watching in amazement as Mike Dean waved it away. I couldn’t fucking believe it. However before I had time to chuck my beer across the room Arshavin picked the ball back up outside the box and let loose a belter inside the top left corner. What a strike.

What a player he is and you know it’s not a fluke because this is not the first time we’ve seen him finish like that. It was the perfect justice for not winning the penalty and meant we were 1-0 up at half time.

I felt confident at the break. Our centre backs were playing really well and we looked strong across the park. I said on my twitter I just hoped we could keep it going.

I think everyone was expecting United to come out flying but it us who so nearly got the second of the game. I think it was Arshavin who put a low cross in from the right and van Persie did well to get in front of the defender to poke it goalwards. Somehow Ben Foster got an outstretched leg on it to keep the home side in the game. It was a close as you can get to scoring and how things might’ve changed if we’d have gone 2-0 at this point. Robin was very, very unlucky and I think Foster was counting his lucky stars.

We continued to play well and as you’d expect it was United who scored completely against the run of play. Rooney was put through but was heading well wide and off the pitch. In an incident very similar to Eduardo’s penalty decision Almunia decided he had no choice but to come out at Rooney and slid in with his arms forming a nice little obstacle for Wayne Rooney to tumble over. It’s a shame but that was always going to be given as a penalty, Manuel didn’t do much to help himself. Rooney took it himself sending Almunia the wrong way, 1-1.

Just 5 minutes later we found ourselves behind. Ryan Giggs’ free kick from the right was swung in nicely but there was no United player in there apart from I think it was Rooney lurking at the far post not really in any dangerous position to score. Luckily for United though Abou Diaby was on hand to pull off a bizarre own goal looping a header over Almunia. It looks in the replay almost as if he’s tried to aim it towards our goal… whether that was intended for Almunia to catch or to be off target I don’t know but it was a terrible defensive header.

I couldn’t believe it but from being quite comfortable at 1-0 we were down 2-1 and you can’t really say the home side deserved it.

We threw Bendtner and Eduardo on but you could almost tell it was game over. To have thrown away a lead in the manner in which we had it just felt like it wasn’t going to be our day and we knew if referee Mike Dean had anything to do with it we weren’t going to be given any luck.

We were given one last chance by the officials when 5 minutes of injury time was announced. We did manage to get the ball in the net in that time but unfortunately for us it was offside. William Gallas as he does was in a forward position trying to get us another vital goal and he showed a lack of instinct straying just offside at the final moment to rule our goal out.

The ball came into the box and Gallas rose to head it square to van Persie, he took it down for what he thought was a late, late (but deserved) equaliser but just when the ball was played into Gallas he had stepped offside. Well spotted by the linesman I have to say as much as I hate to admit it.

The commentator had said it was offside before the ball was in the net so I saved myself the embarrassment of wildly celebrating in vain but the news of the decision took a few seconds to filter through to Arsene Wenger who had started celebrating already. When he saw the offside, as you do – kicked the nearest object to him in frustration, a water bottle. Quite innocently kicking the bottle in disbelief – not in anger or in some sort of way to rebel, just… kicking a bottle. The 4th official was very quick to call over Mike Dean and tell him to send Wenger off. An awful decision, he did nothing wrong.

Anyway it wasn’t just that it was the very public humiliation of Arsene in front of the home fans who had been singing, “Sit down you paedophile,” all afternoon. I’m sure you’ve all seen it, I don’t need to go into it but apparently the FA will be apologising to Wenger for the way he was treated and so they should. Well, it should really be Mike Dean and his official for not only making a very poor decision and judgment of the situation, not only for humiliating him like that, but also for causing such a fuss over a very little and silly matter when there was 96 minutes gone of the game and the tie very much over.

Well anyway it finished 2-1, deserved or not and we left with no points. It a shame because we really played quite well even without Cesc Fabregas and came away with nothing. The captain was missed and it might’ve been a different story without him but we should be proud of ourselves.

It a shame we’re going to have to wait a couple of weeks to get this loss out of out minds because we’re going into an international break but next up it’s another trip to Manchester to face City. It’s going to be a tasty one, build up to come nearer the time.

Thanks for reading.