Manchester United (1) 1 - 0 (0) Arsenal
Old Trafford, Wednesday 1st December 2004
League Cup quarter-final
Arsenal:
Almunia
Hoyte Senderos Djourou Clichy
Pennant Flamini Larsson Quincy
van Persie Lupoli
Arsenal went out with an outfield having an average age
of 19. Man Unuted put them out with a goal on 19 seconds.
It was a soft one, too. We got possession from the kick-off
and were passing it around. As the ball came towards Djourou,
with no pressure on him, he slipped over and Bellion got hold of
the ball. He brought it forward to the D, skipped past a couple
of defenders (including Clichy who also slipped over), and unleashed a pretty tame shot almost straight
at Almunia. The keeper dropped to gather it and somehow managed
to fumble it past himself into the net.
Almunia was by far the busier of the 2 keepers after that too.
He made a decent catch when O'Shea's looping header from a corner
forced him to backtrack and catch it under the bar. Perhaps
Clichy on the line would have stopped it anyway.
A cross from their right was headed out of the box by Djourou
to Richardson whose thunderous shot was well saved by Almunia.
Moments later Almunia was saving from the same player, this time
a soft one (so he can stop the easy ones).
Our best chance came from a surging run by Quincy coming in
from the left. He got past a couple of defenders and fed Lupoli
in the D. The young Italian was fouled by Brown, but made
quite a meal of it (cut that out Arturo!). Pennant curled the
free kick low towards the far post and the Howard made a
good diving save.
The main event of the second half was a clash between van Persie and
Richardson which saw both of them booked. It started with a great
sliding tackle by the Arsenal player. But as they both got up to
chase the ball van Persie tried to get his body in the way.
At this point Alex Ferguson seems to have claimed an elbow was thrown.
Replays suggest otherwise, but van Persie failed to stop Richardson
muscling past him (he wasn't looking at the ball, even) and then
cythed him down from behind. Richardson was lucky to stay on
after his absurd retaliation, but our man was similarly fortunate
to only see yellow.
So, as usual we'd be saying at least we're free to concentrate on the
league and champs league... only it's a different team. | 
