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Arsenal play host to Manchester United at the Emirates Stadium on New Year’s Day and while the stakes aren’t as high as in previous encounters – United currently sit in 5th place in the Premier League, miles away from title contention, while Arsenal are even lower in 12th – this clash will still draw eyeballs due to its sheer history.
Simply put, the rivalry between the Gunners and the Red Devils arguably defined the Premier League for its first two decades, with Arsene Wenger’s side stepping up to become Sir Alex Ferguson’s main challengers after their early period of dominance.
Only time will tell whether this upcoming game will live up to the hype – but if it comes close to the following 5 classics, it’ll be brilliant. Here are 5 of the best Premier League encounters between Arsenal and Manchester United.
#1 Manchester United 0-1 Arsenal – March 14th 1998
Reigning champions Manchester United looked set to walk to a third successive Premier League title when they led the table at the end of 1997, but by mid-March 1998, a combination of some sticky results for the Red Devils – including losses to Coventry, Southampton and Leicester – and a tremendous run by Arsenal meant that everything appeared to be on the line when the Gunners visited Old Trafford with 11 games to go.
In the end, Arsenal – in their first full season under Arsene Wenger – came out on top in a tight game thanks to a single goal from flying Dutch winger Marc Overmars.
For the most part, the Gunners left Alex Ferguson’s side chasing shadows, with Martin Keown and Tony Adams standing firm in the centre of defence while Overmars, Dennis Bergkamp and Nicolas Anelka caused United’s back-line all kinds of problems.
With 11 minutes remaining, Overmars settled the game; the Dutchman showed phenomenal pace to latch onto a flick from Anelka before slotting the ball past Peter Schmeichel.
The victory left Arsenal just 6 points behind United but with 3 games in hand – and in the end, they made the most of them, going on a run of another 8 straight wins following this one to sew up the title with 2 matches to go.
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#2 Manchester United 6-1 Arsenal – February 25th 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.
#3 Manchester United 0-0 Arsenal – September 21st 2003
By 2003-04, following some monumental clashes in the preceding seasons, the rivalry between Manchester United and Arsenal was as bitter as it had ever been – and things came to a head in a bad-tempered game in September 2003 that ended 0-0 but was certainly not short on action. After all was said and done, the match was christened ‘The Battle of Old Trafford’.
The fans in attendance at Old Trafford saw few chances; United had just 5 shots on target while Arsene Wenger’s Gunners didn’t even manage one, but the tension in the stadium was unbelievable and the match was heavily marked by some brutal challenges.
The Red Devils committed 13 fouls to Arsenal’s 18, and 4 players were booked on each side – including Arsenal captain Patrick Vieira, who was dismissed for a retaliatory kick at United striker Ruud Van Nistelrooy following a clash late in the game, despite Arsenal’s players feeling that the Dutchman had feigned injury.
The craziest incident was yet to come, though; with 90 minutes gone, referee Steve Bennett awarded a controversial penalty following a Martin Keown challenge on Diego Forlan. Arsenal’s players were incensed – feeling the Uruguayan had dived – and when Van Nistelrooy’s spot-kick hit the bar, all hell broke loose.
Arsenal players – including Keown, Lauren and Ray Parlour – immediately confronted the Dutchman, with Keown leaping onto his back, and in response a handful of United players became involved, causing a fracas that ended with 6 Arsenal players, 2 United players and the Gunners as a club being charged with improper conduct by the FA.
The Gunners ended up going the full 2003-04 season unbeaten – gaining the Invincibles tag in the process – while their rivalry with United showed no signs of slowing down after this classic showdown.
#4 Manchester United 2-0 Arsenal – October 24th 2004
After 2003-04 saw ‘The Battle of Old Trafford’, the rivalry between Manchester United and Arsenal somehow became even more bitter in the following season, as Sir Alex Ferguson’s side – inspired by birthday boy Wayne Rooney – finally ended the Gunners’ 49-match undefeated run by defeating them 2-0 in a match that became infamously known as ‘The Battle of the Buffet’.
The match was a somewhat scrappy affair, marked by a questionable performance from referee Mike Riley, who appeared to be struggling to keep control of the players on both sides; despite some poor challenges, only 5 players were booked during the match, with United’s Rio Ferdinand avoiding any kind of sanction altogether despite a professional foul on Freddie Ljungberg in the first half.
The game was eventually decided by Rooney – who turned 19 on the day of the match – when the England striker charged into the box and was brought down by Arsenal defender Sol Campbell. Riley awarded a penalty – despite Rooney appearing to go down easily – and Ruud Van Nistelrooy dispatched the spot-kick after his notorious miss a year beforehand.
The Gunners attempted to respond, but left gaps in their defence and with only added time remaining, Rooney finished off a counter-attack involving substitutes Louis Saha and Alan Smith to seal the three points – and bring Arsenal’s long undefeated streak to a crashing halt.
More infamy was heaped onto the match after the final whistle, though; tempers flared in the players’ tunnel with various confrontations, and eventually this erupted into a full-scale fracas, with football legend suggesting that Cesc Fabregas threw pizza at United boss Ferguson, who was then forced to change his outfit to carry out post-match media duties.
The ‘Battle of the Buffet’ sobriquet was added soon after, but despite the incident becoming part of Premier League folklore, it was Ferguson who had the last laugh; Arsenal were top of the table prior to this game, but the loss marked a downturn in form for the Gunners and they won just 1 of their following 5 matches, slipping behind Chelsea in the eventual title race.
#5 Arsenal 2-4 Manchester United – February 1st 2005
After the notorious ‘Battle of the Buffet’ in the early stages of the 2004-05 season, the Manchester United-Arsenal rivalry only grew in the return game, which saw the Red Devils take all 3 points from their encounter at Highbury by winning 2-4 after yet another fiery, bad-tempered showdown.
Things became nasty even before the first ball was kicked; United captain Roy Keane angrily confronted his Arsenal counterpart Patrick Vieira in the players’ tunnel prior to the game after the Frenchman had apparently attempted to threaten Gary Neville, the England right-back having thrown in some hard tackles during the prior meeting between the sides.
The players had to be separated by referee Graham Poll, and the bad feeling continued onto the pitch, when both sides continued to put in some reckless challenges and question seemingly every decision Poll made. This was also an action-packed game, though, with Vieira heading Arsenal in front, only for United to equalise through Ryan Giggs.
The Gunners took the lead once again, Dennis Bergkamp netting 10 minutes before half-time, but the Red Devils took command in the second half, with Cristiano Ronaldo scoring twice to put Sir Alex Ferguson’s side in the lead before Mikael Silvestre was shown the red card for a bad foul on Freddie Ljungberg.
Arsene Wenger’s team were unable to hit back, though, and the game was finally put beyond them when John O’Shea found the net with a lob with only added time remaining.
After the match both sides came under fire from fans, who felt that the rivalry had gotten too big for its own good – and by the end of the season, neither side were able to claim the Premier League title. That glory went to Chelsea – who broke the United/Arsenal stranglehold on the title that had lasted for a decade.
