LONDON: The irony could be almost too much for Arsenal fans to bear tomorrow with their team expected to form a guard of honour for newly-crowned champions Manchester United.
It is a long time since Premier League clashes between the old adversaries in April were often ‘title deciders’ with the only real significance of the outcome of tomorrow’s match (1500)being its effect on Arsenal’s chances of finishing in the top four.
Arsenal’s title challenge effectively ended last August when top goalscorer Robin van Persie (pictured) was sold to United and they replaced him with Frenchman Olivier Giroud who will be suspended for a match his side dare not lose.
Van Persie took his tally to 24 goals on Monday with a hat-trick against Aston Villa as United wrapped up a 20th league title and Arsenal fans can only wonder at what might have been had he not left to fulfil his ambitions at Old Trafford.
The Dutchman, who had just one FA Cup winners medal to show for his eight and a half years in north London, scored as Arsenal went down 2-1 at Old Trafford earlier in the season.
After a recent lull, his dazzling display against Villa made him favourite to end the season as the league’s top scorer for a second consecutive campaign.
Once the pre-match niceties are over at the Emirates the old animosity that used to accompany these fixtures could re-surface as there remains plenty at stake. With Manchester City likely to finish runners-up, capital trio Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur are scrapping for the other two Champions League slots.
Arsenal are third with 63 points with four games left, a point ahead of Chelsea and two ahead of Tottenham, both of whom have five games left to play.
United know that if they win their last four games, which also include a home game against Chelsea, they will set a new Premier League points record of 96. Chelsea host mid-table Swansea City tomorrow (1400) while Tottenham, reinvigorated after a 3-1 victory over Manchester City last week, travel to relegation battlers Wigan Athletic tomorrow (1400) hoping to exert some pressure on their top-four rivals.
When Arsene Wenger took over as Arsenal manager in 1996 it marked the beginning of rivalry with Manchester United that was as intense as anything else in world soccer. The personality clash between Wenger and United manager Alex Ferguson fanned the flames and things regularly combusted on the pitch, and off it as was the case when Arsenal’s players hurled pizza at their rivals after one particularly feisty encounter.
From the 1997-98 season, when Wenger’s Arsenal won the title, to United’s triumph in 2002-03, the two sides finished first and second on five occasions.Agencies
