Manchester United 2-0 Arsenal

Arsenal were knocked out of a third competition in less than two weeks at Old Trafford yesterday. It was a closely fought match and it was the best Arsenal have played at Old Trafford for years. However it still wasn't enough to clinch a draw or even a win due to an excellent display by Edwin Van Der Sar in the United goal. Arsenal dominated possession and created many chances but we were awful in the final third of the pitch and simply couldn't score. United sat back for the majority of the game and hit Arsenal on the counter attack, this strategy worked perfectly for United and they scored two goals at very important stages of the game.

 The game began with Arsenal having most of the ball and taking advantage of having the extra man in midfield. Abou Diaby played in Cesc's advanced midfield position and had plenty of the ball and linked up well with Van Persie. Gibbs had also came in for Clichy at left back as the youngster needs games to continue to progress as a footballer. Rafael had the first good chance of the match and really should have put United in the lead. However not long later in the 27th minute his twin brother managed to score after a cross from Rafael. Arsenal had another couple of chances towards the end of the first half but failed to score after Van Der Sar made some brilliant saves especially from Samir Nasri and Robin Van Persie.

 The second half began with Antonio Valencia making his return from injury for Man United. Rooney moved out to the left hand side and Man United now matched Arsenals 5 man midfield. Van Der Sar saved brilliantly from Koscielny twice and Arsenal really should of equalised at this stage of the match. However Rooney scored a second for United shortly after, giving Arsenal a near impossible task to reach the semi final at Wembley Stadium. Arsenal had no choice but to go for it and Chamakh, Rosicky and Ramsey were all brought on to try and take the match to a replay at the Emirates. This gave United more space and they nearly scored a third but Almunia made a superb save to stop United from increasing their lead. More importantly however Johan Djourou suffered a horrible injury in a collision with Bacary Sagna. The match was stopped for about 8 minutes as Johan received medical treatment and oxygen while on the pitch. He was clearly in pain and it has turned out he has dislocated his shoulder and will miss the rest of the season. This is a huge blow to our title chances as we haven't lost a Premiership match where Johan has played all 90 minutes.

 All in all it was a disappointing day for Arsenal but at least the side played well and it was a vast improvement over Tuesday night where we were destroyed by Barcelona. We are now just left in the Premier League and will have to be at our best to lift the trophy. We only have the one competition to concentrate on unlike United  and we won't be playing more than the one game a week. This should give the squad more time to recover but our injury list is still one of the biggest in the league and we need players such as Song and Vermaelen to recover as quickly as possible.