Arsenal v Manchester United – live!

• Hit F5 for the latest or select our auto-refresh button below • Stats centre: the latest Premier League table and more • Email your thoughts to gregg.roughley@guardian.co.uk 7 min: Nasri works the ball out to Clichy on the overlap on the left. He charges up to the edge of the box and curls a delicious ball around Vidic to Walcott who has bust a gut to get ahead of the defender but pokes the ball over the bar from eight yards on the stretch. It was a half-chance but difficult given that he was under pressure. Again, positive from Arsenal. 5 min: Arsenal have started the match full of confidence. They look comfortable on the ball and seem content to keep possession and up the pace when necessary. 4 min: Wilshere drags a shot wide 15 yards from goal after a cock-up from Vidic. Some lovely interplay between himself, Van Persie and Song preceded a cross being played in by Walcott who drilled it in to the six-yard box with pace. Ferdinand cleared straight at Vidic, who panicked and poked the ball to Wilshere, but the youngster dragged his left-footer wide under pressure. 1 min: Peep! Chris Foy gets us underway. Arsenal are shooting from left to right on my telly. Arsenal in white, United in black, so paint a picture in your mind if you like. 2.04pm: “The Royal wedding’s not entirely joyless from me, I genuinely have no interest whatsoever, I assume he wasn’t left at the altar. The two parts to weigh up were cost to the country V day off work. I don’t know the former, the latter was pleasant,” says Duncan Smith. I was in work Duncan so it was unpleasant as it was bouncing around the office like a disruptive, annoying posh person. 2.02pm: The teams are out so I’m watching some god awful BMW advert so can’t tell you about the atmosphere or any of the scene-setting business. It’s sunny in north London, I can tell you that though. Kings Cross and it’s array of dirty pavements and ‘special’ bookshops almost looks ‘nice’ today. 1.59pm: A Manchester United fan writes: “The strength of this MU side is the teamwork not the individuals, so it’s harsh and unfair to compare them. This has never stopped me before, so: SAF’s two greatest sides are the 1994 double side and the 1999 treble side. Only Ferdinand, Vidic, and Evra would get into the 1994 side (and Evra only gets in by moving Irwin to RB) for Pallister, Bruce, and Parker. Only Vidic and Rooney would get into the 1999 side (for Johnson and Cole). Only Vidic would be considered for a “SAF-era-best-of” team: Schmeichel, Irwin, Vidic, Stam, GNeville, Giggs 1994, Scholes 1999, Keane, Kanchelskis, Cantona, Hughes. Having said all that I’m very impressed with the achievement of the 2011 MU team up to now.” David Acaster really didn’t need to put the G in front of Neville. 1.57pm: A couple of final scores for you: Liverpool 3-0 Newcastle. Liverpool go fifth. Birmingham 1-1 Wolves. So Wolves move two points clear of West Ham who are bottom and play Man City later on. 1.56pm: My prediction: Arsenal 2-2 Manchester United 1.54pm: Ferguson has just explained that Ryan Giggs has flu so that’s why he’s missing. And the reason he’s playing Nani instead of Valencia is that he feels Nani always does well against Arsenal. Wenger pretty much admitted that Arsenal are playing for pride and to make sure they don’t miss out on Champions League football. 1.50pm: It would be nice if there was a goal like this today … 1.49pm: That Royal wedding was a joyless occasion wasn’t it? 1.43pm: A question for United fans. If United win the league (they need two wins from four), where does this team rate against the other title-winning teams? It’s almost a cliché to suggest that they haven’t been great and that the Premier League has been poor this season, but have they been that much poorer than Ferguson’s other Premier League-winning teams? I think they have, by the way, but that says a lot about how good Ferguson is as a manager. Particularly the way he fostered that embattled spirit after going off on one about Martin Atkinson … Arsenal’s midfield still looks pretty strong, mind: Song, Wilshere and Ramsey will be a match for Carrick and Anderson. There’ll be a lot of pressure on Ramsey to try and step up and be the more offensive of the three. United are a strange breed … Ferguson’s midfield has been chopped and changed all season and yet still he has got results. Preamble Afternoon. Forget signing goalkeepers who can catch, defenders who can defend or an experienced snarler in the middle of the park, what Arsenal need to do more than anything else is reduce the size of the Emirates pitch. At Highbury, Arsène Wenger’s teams were often so devastating because they were technically more able than their opponents at keeping possession in tight situations and pinging passes around dazzled opponents as though playing five-a-side. The bigger playing surface at the Emirates levels things in my opinion, as beautiful as Arsenal’s play can often be on it. They won’t have Cesc Fábregas pinging passes anywhere today, mind. He picked up an injury in training yesterday, apparently, so it’ll be a midfield of Song, Wilshere and Ramsey, who will likely play in Fábregas’s position. Arsenal team: Szczesny, Sagna, Koscielny, Djourou, Clichy, Song, Wilshere, Walcott, Ramsey, Nasri, Van Persie. Subs: Lehmann, Squillaci, Arshavin, Eboué, Gibbs, Chamakh, Bendtner. Manchester United team: Van der Sar; Evra, Ferdinand, Vidic, Fabio; Park, Carrick, Anderson, Nani; Rooney, Chicharito. Subs: Kuszczak, Owen, Berbatov, Smalling, Rafael Da Silva, O’Shea, Valencia. Referee: Chris Foy I’ll have a bit more squad news shortly. Gregg will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s Arsène Wenger on the hectic fortnight in which Arsenal’s season combusted : Wenger, whose team go into their match against Manchester United nine points adrift of Sir Alex Ferguson’s side, believes his players were victims of the schedule, and “must not be ashamed” of the way their season collapsed. Asked if the form of Wayne Rooney has been pivotal in United moving clear at the top, Wenger said: “Maybe, but nothing has turned for us. Manchester United played Marseille [on 15 March] while we played Barcelona [a week earlier] at a very difficult time. “Then we went to Manchester United in the FA Cup and had the Carling Cup the week before Barcelona. It turned against us in the Carling Cup and the Champions League. This team gave a lot but the circumstances were not favourable.” Wenger denied that this has been his toughest season at Arsenal. “It is certainly the year when I have worked the hardest,” he said. “But every year has been tough. Over the last five years this has been the highest quality we have produced: we have nothing to be ashamed of our about performance. “We have not lost against a low-level team. In the FA Cup we lost away to Manchester United just four days after playing in Barcelona. So I give this team a lot of credit. We have battled on all fronts and produced quality. We just couldn’t finish the job.” Premier League Arsenal Manchester United Gregg Roughley guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 1, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.