It Could Get A Bit Messi In Here - The Football Thread.

While the noise played out in the background, the on-field tension soon boiled over. United won four titles and Arsenal lifted the Premiership three times between 1998 and 2004. The 1999 FA Cup semi-final, which United won in extra-time, has a case for being the greatest in the televised era of English football. The national sport became a two-horse race between a pair of thoroughbreds and neither set of players were prepared to give an inch.

For a young player or a new signing, it was an incomparable environment to the disorder of the present day. The modern United and Arsenal are blessed with exciting young talents on both sides. Greenwood, Daniel James, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Scott McTominay are all players with the potential to grow into formidable United players. The same can be said of Reiss Nelson, Matteo Guendouzi, Kieran Tierney and Ainsley Maitland-Niles at Arsenal.

In a different era, these players would be eased in by untouchable managers. While the modern Arsenal, and, to a greater extent, United pin their hopes on over-exposed youngsters, Ferguson and Wenger would bed in a young Fabregas, Ashley Cole, Cristiano Ronaldo or Darren Fletcher. They would be nurtured and protected alongside serial winners.

At United, Keane was the captain who rebuked Fletcher for using his mobile phone in the dressing room but also made him feel 10 feet tall when he told the squad, “I’m glad he’s back, we have missed him”, after a two-month injury absence. When Wes Brown came through, he trained against Mark Hughes — “the biggest legs I’ve seen.”

Players are beneficiaries or victims of circumstance and it will certainly be interesting to see how Solskjaer fills a leadership void in his squad in the coming years.

At Arsenal, it is tempting to wonder whether Bukayo Saka or Joe Willock are around the best senior pros to thrive. Lauren recalls arriving in London from Real Mallorca in 2000 and immediately feeling challenged and emboldened.

He tells The Athletic: “I felt safe walking out onto the field with Vieira, Thierry Henry and Tony Adams. Those players cared about youngsters. I am not saying modern big stars do not but my impression is that before it felt more like a family. These people made such an impact. You wanted to perform like them.

“The example does not come from watching people on television, it comes from seeing the behaviour of these stars every day; how they behaved at training, at lunch, how they travelled. They had gifts but also were determined to be the absolute best every single day.

“I ended up spending my days off at the training ground. You look at Dennis Bergkamp and think he does not need to improve but then he stayed every day after training to rehearse more. Then, as a young or new player, you say, ‘OK, I won’t relax.’”

On the pitch, it made for fiercely competitive performances and a culture where excuses would not be tolerated. It is not always healthy. Matthew Upson came through at Arsenal as a teenager in 1999 and the environment was unforgiving.

He tells The Athletic: “There are different types of pressure. I was surrounded by top players. I felt I couldn’t let them down and if I did, then I knew about it straight away. It was coming at you verbally. There was a fear of not being up to standards. You learn an elite attitude, attending the best university in the world to learn.

“But these United and Arsenal youngsters have a different pressure. There is a reliance on them, an expectation on them. They know they have places and that brings different pressure. United are reliant on Dan James as their main attacking threat. It is ridiculous really for a young lad from Swansea. But playing is key and wow, those games against United…”

Carroll, one of the goalkeepers who held down a place in the United goal between the reigns of Schmeichel and Edwin van der Sar, tells The Athletic: “It was so intense. We were players who hated losing a five-a-side match in training. And when we went to play Arsenal, we were going to war.”
 
Steve Bennett, the former Premier League referee, compares officiating a fixture between United and Arsenal as akin to life as a fire-fighter. He was the man in the middle in September 2003, the referee who dismissed Vieira, awarded United a penalty when Keown hauled down Diego Forlan and then watched aghast, with the rest of us, as chaos reigned.

“You knew what was coming when you got that fixture,” Bennett tells The Athletic. “Those tensions, nobody wanted to lose. I felt like a fireman, putting out all these little fires during the game, to avoid an inferno. But it can become impossible when somebody puts enough petrol down.

“These guys were desperate to win every ball. There are always verbals between players, it reaches boiling point and… bang! Roy Keane, actually, was not a problem player for me. He was the first to admit he was wrong, he would hold his hands up. But we had this phrase as referees: Expect the unexpected. And how could anybody have expected what happened then…”

Van Nistelrooy smashed the bar with the spot-kick and Keown was soon goading him. Four Arsenal players were banned and two United players were fined.

Lauren received a four-game suspension. “I remember!” he says. “Ruud missed the penalty… but there were so many things that had happened every year in every game (with Van Nistelrooy). It wasn’t just that moment, it was previous games, it was Ruud. He was a fantastic player, one of the best strikers, but he had this way of provoking people. And yes, everyone went mad.

“To be honest, when we walked off the pitch, I didn’t think, ‘We’re in trouble!’ It was when the manager told us about six-game bans and the fines that we realised. I had come from the south of Spain, where there is more passion, a hot place, those incidents happen. I felt it was over-exaggerated, the fines, the bans, England took it too seriously. It was not as bad as the FA and media thought. They made an example of Arsenal players. It was nothing extraordinary. We didn’t say publicly but inside it made us stronger and more determined.”

For referee Bennett, there was bewilderment. “After the ball hit the bar, my eyes followed the play so I actually did not see what Keown had done. At the final whistle, there was aggression all over the field. It was impossible to monitor.”

A policeman had to chaperone Vieira off the field following his dismissal — a second yellow card for a kick out at Van Nistelrooy — and after the game, his commanding officer reported to Bennett.

Upson foresaw the boiling point. He played for Arsenal in a 2-1 loss to United in 1999 and then a 3-1 victory over them in 2001. “I nearly scored in the last minute and on the rebound Keown nearly kicked the goalkeeper’s head off. The players, on both teams, were all on the edge. Constant tension, you felt it could explode. There were little fracas, little tear-ups all the time. The fixture had an electricity.”

Bennett was well-guarded in the aftermath that day in 2003. The official says: “We always had security with people outside our doors so that managers could not come in. There was a 30-minute cooling-down period and that was clearly a passionate day. The police commander would come in, give a breakdown of what they had seen and then I would file my report to the FA.

“Leaving the game, I never turned my phone on for quite a few hours and I intentionally avoided newspapers, radio phone-ins and Match of the Day in the first couple of days after a game. I spoke to my dad for advice and referees’ assessors.

“I did wonder the other day whether VAR might have influenced what happened that day. But we did get the two big decisions right — the red card and the penalty. I would need to check where the players started haranguing Van Nistelrooy. If my assistant had flagged, what would I have done?! Should I have given another penalty if there was another offence inside the penalty area? Could you imagine that? Imagine the outcry.

“Sometimes, in a game of that magnitude, you do need to let something play out and be intelligent.”


In an interview with the Daily Mail, Vieira has admitted to sometimes sitting down at home and replaying the footage from those famous encounters. Ferguson, for his part, sometimes watches back the FA Cup semi-final win from 1999.

For Ferguson, the victories over Wenger mattered more and the defeats were more painful. As United chased down Arsenal’s lead to claim back the title in 2003, he had baited Wenger for months. Yet, as the national newspaper reporters gathered the day before a crucial match at Highbury in the April, Ferguson did not deliver an expected jibe. Instead, he bigged up his own team.

“He surprised everyone that day,” says one United executive. “We thought he’d go in again. But he was an oasis of calm. United drew 2-2 the next night (to stay three points clear of their great rivals). Arsenal were wound up, particularly because Sol Campbell was sent off for an elbow. Then Ferguson did something truly unusual for him. When the players had left the pitch, he walked back onto the field, over to the United fans and did two big fist pumps. It was a message to United’s players, fans, and Arsenal’s dressing room to say, ‘We’ve got you now.'”

If a vulnerability emerged between the two teams, it could be Arsenal’s perceived soft centre. Paul Scholes once revealed how the ball was never mentioned in a team talk before facing them. Yet while later iterations of Wenger’s Arsenal certainly wilted, the likes of Lauren and Kanu resist such diagnoses.

“We were warriors,” says Kanu, who is now based in Nigeria working with the Kanu Heart Foundation. “You have to be strong. They let us know what the game is about. They knew they couldn’t let our game flow and anything they could do to intimidate us, they would. But you know… when you train with Martin Keown and Tony Adams, that is very strong preparation. They treated us in training how we could be expect to be treated by Manchester United.

“People talk now about managers, managers, managers, but nobody looks if the players are giving enough. Players should not have to wait for managers (to tell them). I know it is going to be a physical game. The manager should not need to tell me that every day. We should be pumped up for the game. OK, the coach wants this, the coach wants that, but if you have leaders everywhere in the dressing room, then everyone will be up for it.”

Wenger did complain about United’s physical approach but inside the dressing room, there was acceptance. Lauren says: “They knew that Robert Pires and Reyes came from a different way of approaching the game, where referees were more protective. They knew that, and we can see how Neville kicked Reyes. It was the only way to stop quality players. If they became too physical, then the guys would not survive 90 minutes. But it was about using maximum potential to achieve goals and United did that. They got what they wanted and we have to accept that.”

United ended Arsenal’s unbeaten run and the Wenger era, in truth, did not recover.

Now, reality has hit United too and the two teams meeting on Monday are pitted against each other in Europa League mediocrity.

Will it ever be the same again?
 
I don’t know if I’d be more depressed as Spurs fan after being humiliated or as an Arsenal fan knowing that they let Gnabry go...
 
Joe Mac said:
I don’t know if I’d be more depressed as Spurs fan after being humiliated or as an Arsenal fan knowing that they let Gnabry go...
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Gnabry went from zero to hero so fast though. He’s been brilliant for the National Team as well. Hard to really predict his rise to excellence without hindsight. Like Salah or KDB or Lukaku at Chelsea.
 
wokeupnew said:
you can have him, I'm well over how poor we've been playing. We've been shit since February, right before Harry came back from his first ankle injury.
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I’ll take that any day of the week, cracking manager going through a rough patch, this attitude is exactly what I hate about modern football...
 
Holy fuck United are playing brilliantly. This isn’t the first time Liverpool have looked beatable this season.
 
wokeupnew said:
Holy fuck United are playing brilliantly. This isn’t the first time Liverpool have looked beatable this season.
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We’ve been ok but Liverpool have helped us hugely, they've looked nervous and made some weird decisions on the ball. We still look a little short in attack and can we keep running that hard for 90 minutes? Subs will make a huge difference so I hope Martial and some of the younger players on the bench ate up to the 20-30 mins we are going to need them for.
 
Joe Mac said:
We’ve been ok but Liverpool have helped us hugely, they've looked nervous and made some weird decisions on the ball. We still look a little short in attack and can we keep running that hard for 90 minutes? Subs will make a huge difference so I hope Martial and some of the younger players on the bench ate up to the 20-30 mins we are going to need them for.
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I mean, yeah, you haven’t been brilliant, just less than shit how United normally play. All the players look like giving it their all which is nice to see.
 
wokeupnew said:
I mean, yeah, you haven’t been brilliant, just less than shit how United normally play. All the players look like giving it their all which is nice to see.
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well this game matters, form should give Liverpool the edge but I’ve seen poor Liverpool teams beat us in the 90s and 00s and in the 80s when we were worse than this, and liverpool better than us, we would pretty regularly win these games. also playing a team better than us on the ball suits us and let’s us play on the break. It’s no coincidence that our wins are Chelsea, Leicester and, fingers crossed, here.
 
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