Pros and cons

So where do you stand on this whole David Beckham/Alex Ferguson boot bullshit? Foul Play is siding with the guy who plaintively asked whether "Becks" had been given the use of an emergency helicopter on the day, or whether he’d had to make do with just the ambulance.

The slew of tabloid front pages depicting Beckham grimly driving around town in probably the only car he owns that doesn’t have tinted windows, with hairband carefully utilised to give his ‘injury’ the fullest possible exposure, not only constituted an early contender for non-story of the decade, never mind the year.

It also helpfully served to draw attention away from the fact – and after the Bolton debacle at the weekend, it is now exactly that, an incontrovertible fact – that Manchester United are no longer the strongest team in England. (They may yet turn out to be the strongest team in Europe, but more of that later.)

The Cup defeat at Old Trafford ate up rather more press column inches than the league clash in December, when Phil Neville played the game of his life as United won 2-0. In one sense, this is inexplicable. It was only the Cup, after all, no points were on offer, and Arsenal’s narrow lead over United in the table had grown no larger.

But Arsenal used that game to strike a blow that reverberated far beyond admittance to the sixth round of the FA Cup. This is why its significance was seized upon so eagerly. If the Manchester United footballing empire has had one identifiable foundation stone, it is that of never giving up, chasing every ball, fighting to the last second, exhibiting a pathological refusal to countenance that the game could be up. There wasn’t a hell of a lot of that on show last Saturday week. Doing it for five minutes against Bolton a week later is little consolation.

In the same way that Liverpool’s 4-4 draw with Everton in 1991 (another Cup game) can retrospectively be seen as the day it all came undone for the most successful club side in English history, United’s second-half torpor against the Gunners, their clear lack of self-belief on the day, their apparent disinterest in chasing the match after going two down, may come to be seen as a watershed – the day that Wenger’s Arsenal finally pulled ahead of them after years of striving to do so.

The process began with last year’s championship win, achieved, of course, at Old Trafford. As a United supporter, I remember spluttering with rage that night when Wenger came out with his famous line about a "shift in power". You can’t come out with that sort of arrogant, presumptuous shite after one championship win. You can, however, certainly say it after winning two back-to-back. Wenger just a year premature.

Arsenal are not quite as good as they think they are, and would do themselves a huge favour if they stopped making the kind of self-satisfied noises currently emanating from their camp (c.f. the Highbury PA-announcer idiot who contrasted Wenger’s loss of his voice with Ferguson, “who has lost his head”). But, given that they have comfortably had the better of three of the last four encounters between the teams, it’s safe to say that domestically, at this point in time, they have United’s number.

But, watching them last week against an Ajax side missing about half of its normal components, in what was undoubtedly one of the most enjoyable games of the season thus far, it was impossible not to be reminded of the United team of 1993/94, another side whose domestic hegemony was in inverse proportion to the amount of serious blows they landed against good continental opposition.

It’s not really the point that Arsenal played better football against Ajax (who were themselves excellent) than United did against Juventus the following night (who were also missing half a team). The point is that United are about two or three years ahead of the Gunners on the Euro learning curve, while simultaneously having slipped at least a year behind them on the domestic index.

Having lost the ability to scare the Boltons and Middlesbroughs any more, United still appear well able for most of the top European sides. Conversely, Arsenal might do well to concentrate on the league. A team whose back five consists of Seaman, Lauren, Campbell, Cygan and Cole cannot harbour any realistic aspirations of winning the Champions League. The Premiership seems to be another matter entirely, but enough of that.

Anyway, for the sake of my sanity, and that of every other United supporter, Arsenal had better not think of getting anywhere near the final. They’ve had quite enough fun at Old Trafford recently as it is.