The second leg of the Champions League semi-final between Arsenal and Manchester United took place last night amongst great anticipation. The first leg had ended 1-0 to United but Arsenal were probably the happier at the end of that game as United had dominated and should have opened up a bigger lead.
Comfortable
Both teams came into the game in good form after gaining comfortable wins at the weekend with teams including many reserve players.
United welcomed back Rio Ferdinand who had recovered from the painful blow he took to his ribs last week and Patrice Evra recovered from his ankle injury.
For Arsenal, Robin van Persie was available after a while out with a groin injury. Gael Clichy and Eduardo were both missing through injury and Andrey Arshavin was cup tied. Mikael Silvestre was on the bench but not considered fit enough to start.
Outcome
As far as predicting the outcome of games goes, this one was about as difficult as it gets. All outcomes were possible and an early goal from Arsenal would certainly have made things very interesting.
In fact, the first few minutes were dominated by Arsenal and a goal for the home side seemed a possibility, although van der Saar wasn’t troubled.
Slipped
In one of United’s first attacks, in the eighth minute, the ball was played across the face of the Arsenal goal and the unfortunate youngster Kieran Gibbs slipped up, allowing Park to finish cleverly and give Arsenal a mountain to climb.
Just three minutes later things went from bad to worse for Arsene Wenger’s side when Cristiano Ronaldo hammered home a trade-mark free-kick from forty-one yards out. It was a truly great strike but Almunia will have nightmares about not stopping it.
Game over
That was that really. It was game over. United showed all their class and European experience to kill the game and allowed Arsenal almost no serious attacks whatever. In fact it was United who continued to look dangerous and Almunia produced fine saves to deny both Rooney and Ronaldo.
The second half saw the game continue in much the same way. Arsenal had plenty of possession but did nothing with it whilst United constantly looked capable of scoring again.
Lightening
It was from a lightening quick, Arsenal type break, that United went 3-0 ahead. Breaking quickly from a Vidic defensive header Park fed the ball to Rooney who played a perfectly weighted pass across the penalty area to Ronaldo who made no mistake.
There was still time for one moment of great controversy as the game petered out. Fabregas was put through on goal and the excellent Darren Fletcher chased him back and put in a quite brilliant goal saving tackle.
Astonishing
Just as everyone was about to congratulate Fletcher the referee made the astonishing decision to point to the penalty spot and show a red card to the distraught midfielder. The red card means that Fletcher cannot play in the final and that is a terrible injustice. UEFA rules state that the red card cannot be appealed. How ridiculous is that?
Robin van Persie made no mistake from the spot but in the final fifteen minutes or so, Arsenal were totally unable to make their man advantage count and United saw out a really comfortable victory.
Deserving
Cristiano Ronaldo is the current world player of the year. Some people felt that Barcelona’s Lionel Messi was more deserving of the title and pointed to the fact that Ronaldo didn’t always turn up in the big games. Well, he scored in last season’s final, again in this season’s quarter-final and again twice last night. He is answering his critics and he has thrown down the gauntlet to Messi who was anonymous in the Barcelona against Chelsea game last week.
Arguably
So it will be Manchester United to face the winners of tonight’s tie between Chelsea and Barcelona. That game is arguably even more difficult to predict than this one was. One thing is for sure. It just has to be a better game than they served up last week at the Camp Nou.
Will Lionel Messi respond to Cristiano Ronaldo and show us what he can do, or will Chelsea force a repeat of last season’s final?
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