I was looking forward to this Clash of the Titans, because both teams were seemingly in good form going into this, and also because it would be Arshavin's first start against Man Utd. So I really expected it to be an awesome football match played by 2 sides who like to play quick attacking football, but I was wrong.

Playing against United at Old Trafford is always going to be intimidating. Officiating the match will also be quite a challenge, but Mike Dean surpassed Uriah Rennie's idiocy levels by giving a clinic on "How Not to Referee a Big Game". If there was ever such a video this 95 mins would suffice.


I'm not being the least bit biased when I say about 90% of decisions went Man Utd's way. And I find it a miracle that Darren Fletcher made as many fouls as John Terry would in a season and not get A SINGLE yellow card. Any objective and knowledgeable Man Utd fan would tell you that a), Fletcher's role is to break up opponent's attacks and b), he is as clean a player as Kolo Toure is white.

I've lost count of how many times he kicked an Arsenal player into the ground and jogged away without the slightest of warning from Mike Dean. It's ridiculous. When Alex Song fouled Giggs on a rare United breakaway he got a yellow straight away from a sprinting Dean. Fletcher repeated that stunt at least 5 times on an Arsenal player and he got nothing? Tell me this wasn't because Song's foul was met with furious roars across the stadium and Fletcher's fouls were met with applause.

To compound his reputation as the worst referee in the galaxy, this happened, without even the slightest of reprimanding.



If you watched the replay closely, the only time Fletcher got the ball was at 0:07, and that was with his hand.

Alas, Arshavin exacted his own revenge, when instead of hounding the referee for a penalty like a Chelsea player he dusted himself up and absolutely walloped that into the top corner. Nonetheless, who is to say he couldn't score that goal even if the penalty was given.


And just when you thought surely there is nothing more Dean can do, he and the 4th official jointly decided that kicking a bottle in sheer frustration at a disallowed late equalizer actually meant that Wenger was going to napalm the stadium, and fearing for the safety of supporters, banished Wenger into the stands. It was an utter disgrace,

15 mins into the match, and after witnessing the cagey start by both teams, I remarked that this game would be decided by mistakes, because both teams were backing off each other too much. Arsenal weren't playing their usual high pressing game, although I'm still deciding if that was because Eboue was fucking it up with his cunt-ish positioning.

2 mistakes, 2 goals conceded, and we threw away what would otherwise have been a resounding victory, signaling our intentions as genuine title challengers this year. I don't blame Diaby though, he was by far our most industrious player. He's shaping up into one hell of a player, just hope this setback doesn't affect him too much.

We had a thunderous freekick smashed against the crossbar, a goal (rightly)ruled out for offside, and Foster made what is possibly the save of the season against Van Persie. I've always thought Foster was class, and this was why. Fucking brilliant save.

United had their chances, but that was towards the end when Arsene decided to go for broke. Other than that, Rooney was so isolated up front with Vermaelen I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the game he could say "How do you do?" in Belgian.

Did Man United deserve to win? I don't know. Were they lucky? To me, the answer is a firm no. This was a win engineered by Mike Dean's version of refereeing like a retard, Foster's brilliance, Arsenal's profligacy in front goal, and also our stupid mistakes at the back. Without a shadow of a doubt, we fucking outplayed United, and if someone of normal intelligence levels was the official, we would have won this. Did we deserve more? Absolutely. But this is football. And nothing like an unfair result galvanizes the team better.

Back to Manchester after Interlull period. A chance to face up against Toure and Adefuckyor. A chance to avenge this ludicrous defeat.

Come on you Gunners!!!