What A Game! What A Performance!

By: Wayne Farry | May 5th, 2009

What a night! What a game! What a performance! What a ridiculous red card!

Above are my general feelings on tonight’s game! First off, what a day it was for a game like this. The sun set on the Emirates Stadium as the match kicked off, as I remarked to my brother that the build-up reminded me of a World Cup game. Maybe that’s nonsensical, but with a bright sky and a game certain to be entertaining on the cards, I couldn’t help but compare it to the greatest of all spectacles.

On RTE (Ireland’s main network) it had been described by Graeme Souness as the biggest game in Arsenal’s history, which is quite sad. What’s sadder is how they capitulated in this, their biggest game. But really, it’s not Arsenal’s fault, it’s United’s fault for being so incredibly good, in what was, in my opinion, our best performance against a big team in a long, long time!

So after a 1-0 home win in the first leg most of us expected a wide-open game with both sides scoring, we got that, but not in the way that many expected. Arsenal started very well, they were quick, they passed the ball well and put pressure on United’s players. But that was all put away in the eight minute, when Anderson played a through ball to Ronaldo, who took the ball on and played a low cross into the box. It should have been cleared, no doubt, but Arsenal’s 19-year old left back Kieran Gibbs slipped and JSP/PJS (whatever you wanna call him, let’s go with Park) covered loads of yards to sneak up behind the defender, go past him and put the ball over Manuel Almunia. Arsenal, at this stage had to score three to go through, sweet.

Then in the eleventh minute Ronaldo was fouled about forty yards out. To be honest, I wasn’t too fascinated by the situation at first. I saw a long-range free-kick, but I also took into account the fact that the last free-kick he scored was against Blackburn, which was quite a while ago. I guess I should have thought of the Porto match. As I absentmindedly rolled a cigarette I watched as the Portuguese sex-bomb ran up, struck the ball and stuck it in the back of the net. I was stunned, completely. Half-rolled cigarette in hand I simply watched the celebrations open-mouthed and tried to take it in, which I did. As I realised the gravitas of this goal I began to jump, scream and high-five uncontrollably. It was a nice feeling.

The rest of the first half was nice, very well controlled by United as they knew that they were through.

The second was much the same, with United playing nice, controlled football as Arsenal slowly but surely watched their season turn to a fourth without a trophy. In the sixtieth minute, Arsenal had a corner. It was taken and Nemanja Vidic (who was brilliant) headed clear to Ronaldo. He back-heeled it to Park who after running multiple yards passed it to Rooney on the left wing. Rooney ran further and with no more than a glance right played a beautiful pass across the Arsenal box to Ronnie, who, whilst sliding hit the ball into the back of the net. Game, set, match.

But there was time for more drama. Sir Alex took off Rooney, Evra and Anderson (who once again was good) in place of Berba, Rafael and Giggs, obviously taking into account the fact that Roo and Evra were one yellow card away from missing the CL Final. In the seventy-sixth minute a ball was played into the United box, Cesc Fabregas was on the end of it, he got the ball and ran into the six-yard box just as Fletcher stretched his foot around him and nicked the ball away. The shitty little Spaniard took it upon himself to dive as he saw the ball drift away. At first I thought penalty, then I thought it would be a yellow card for a dive, then I realised. Darren Fletcher (you poor bastard) is continuing the Untied tradition started by Scholes and Keano in being suspended for a Champions League Final. RVP dispatched it beautifully by the way, really nice penalty.

The rest of the match was played out in quite ceremonial fashion. One thing I noticed is that Rafael, despite how much I love the curly little guy, really can’t tackle. Need to sort that out in the summer Sir Alex.

So we’re going to Rome to face either Barca or Chelsea. Great performance tonight with the only sour note being that Fletcher will miss it undeservedly.

But still, great game, great performance, one which really shows the gulf in class between Untied and Arsenal. Your move, voyeur.

By the way, from the LiveBlog talk after the match, the general consensus was that the man of the match was Cristiano Ronaldo, followed not far behind by the tireless Park.

Check out the highlights (posted by T-Rock) here…