CL second leg: Arsenal – Man United

While stumblin’ out of bed early in the morning to watch a CL game, you sort of go over the scenarios.

You’d definitely expect a match. With Capital M. Only 1-0 on aggregate, anything could happen. Even penalty kicks are an option. So when Manchester United closes the game off within ten minutes.

Sure, Arsenal had to attack and sure, Man United is lethal in the counter but two costly mistakes helped an allmighty Manchester close the game off much too early. First, Gibbs slipped on a sharp Ronaldo cross allowing former PSV winger Park to score the 1-0. Some minutes later, Ronaldo was allowed to take a free kick some 35 meters from goal. The Gunners deployed two men in the wall but C Ronaldo still was able to surprise Almounia who didn’t look too flash going for the ball. As if he didn’t want to stretch out his arms… But whatever, Sir Alex must have thought. It’s game over!

Arsenal’s boys looked innocent and adolescent against the men from Manchester. It was no contest.

We read earlier about the difference of capital spent ( 150 million by Sir Alex, 40 million by Arsene) and that difference showed on the pitch this time around.

The question regarding Man United is: who’s going to stop them this season?

And the question regarding Arsenal is: do you want to have fun developing young talents and making money or do you want to start winning some silverware?

Arsenal couldn’t create anything and it took a mistake by the ref to break the spell. A brilliant defensive move by Fletcher in the box on Fabregas was stopped: penalty for Arsenal and red card for Fletcher. Who’ll miss the finals. Van Persie scored brilliantly from the spot, but to no avail. By then, Ronaldo already scored the 0-3 after an Oranje like counter-attack via three stations. Set up by Ronaldo and via Park and Rooney the Portuguese striker scored his second and ManU’s third.

Arsenal looked impotent during the whole match, while Man United again established itself as the ultimate football-fighting machine. The work these players put in and the consistency of the team is just outstanding. They played more than 60 games this season and they’re still on track for two prizes.

Wenger will have to lick his wounds, as we say, and start again. He probably wished he’d gone and seen a musical this evening….