Arsenal vs. Manchester United: 5 of their best Premier League encounters

#2 Manchester United 6-1 Arsenal – February 25th 2001

A Dwight Yorke hat-trick helped United to a 6-1 win over Arsenal in 2001

By the 2000-01 season, Arsenal were still Manchester United’s closest rivals, but a gap had opened between the two sides since the Gunners’ Premier League title victory in 1997-98, and in this game in February 2001, that gap became a chasm.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s side dismantled Arsene Wenger’s men at Old Trafford, essentially sewing up their third successive Premier League title despite there being 10 games to go in the season.

Arsenal – hit heavily by an injury crisis that sidelined first-choice defenders Tony Adams, Martin Keown and Lee Dixon – fielded a weakened defence that included Oleg Luzhny and Igor Stepanovs, and despite conceding within 2 minutes when Dwight Yorke opened the scoring for United, it appeared that Wenger’s chosen method was to fight fire with fire.

The Gunners quickly equalised through Thierry Henry, but soon their frailties came to light in the worst way.

By just the 26th minute, Arsenal found themselves 4-1 down; Yorke completed his hat-trick and Roy Keane also scored thanks to some suicidal defending from Stepanovs and Gilles Grimandi.

When Ole Gunnar Solskjaer added a 5th goal before half-time, the match was over as a contest – and a much slower second half saw the Red Devils score a 6th through Teddy Sheringham.

This was a crushing defeat for Wenger’s men – who ended the season 10 points behind their rivals months after this humiliation.