Arsenal vs Manchester United - Emirates Stadium, London - Sunday 21st January 2007

The games at the new stadium gradually get bigger, and the visit of Manchester United was the latest “first” at the stadium. After seeing off Liverpool and Spurs already, the mood was that United would be much, much more difficult. Nevertheless, spirits were high in the pub before the game, especially given the decent cup and away league results over the past couple of weeks. Whilst not expecting a win, most people seemed to be more than hopefully of one.

The match started in typical fashion for a United game. The referee booked Toure very early in the game, then proceeded not to book a succession of United players for things that seemed worse that Toure’s offence. No change there then. The first half was even enough, and at 0-0 at half time, I felt that Arsenal were playing well enough to get a decent result. It was not a classic game, but was nicely in the balance, so was certainly intriguing.

Ten minutes into the second half, United went ahead, after our defence went to sleep and allowed big fat Wayne Rooney to get in at the far post for a header from a cross. In a reasonably even game, it wasn’t hugely deserved, but it wasn’t entirely undeserved either.

In response to being a goal down, Arsene Wenger did something that I have often complained about the lack of in the past – he radically and quickly changed the game plan. Putting 2 subs on so that we had 4 strikers in effect (Henry, Adebayor, Van Persie, and Baptista), with the hardly un-attacking Rosicky there as well, it was a bold attacking move to try to rescue the game. Some pressure, some decent chances, but also some unproductive huffing and puffing followed.

With around 10 minutes to go, apparently Andy Gray on Sky started to praise the professionalism of United’s performance – to go ahead, then close out the game to secure a 1-0 win. Excellent, then, that they collapsed in the last 10 minutes. Arsenal were going all guns blazing, and Van Persie slid in from a seemingly impossible angle to divert a cross into the roof of the net with 7 minutes to go. The North Bank went mental, and with 4 strikers on the pitch, there was a real feeling that we would turn the screw and win the game.

A further 7 minutes, plus 3 of injury time later, came the moment we had all been waiting for, and which sparked the best celebration in the new stadium yet. A cross from the right, Henry rose in the middle to get an excellent header, which beat Van Der Sar, hit the back of the net, and made the entire stadium erupt. I was very glad that some fool in front of me had left when we were 1-0 down, and missed the whole thing. When the final whistle went, Henry went ballistic, pumping fists, jumping up and down, and coming over to the north west corner for prolonged applause to the crowd. A magnificent comeback and a magnificent result, which surely gives the team belief that they can beat anybody, anytime.

I had been saying, earlier in the season, that Arsenal urgently needed to get some memorable results under their belt as soon as possible - to help fans and the team identify with the new stadium, and ultimately to help make it an intimidating fortress. Well, despite good wins against Liverpool and Spurs, nothing quite beats an injury time win against table-topping Manchester United, after being 1-0 down with seven minutes to play. In fact, not many games beat that at all.

It was a pretty lucky win, United were the better team for a majority of the game, and to be honest, it actually helped Chelsea more than anybody else. But, a magic, magic game, and I always love an opportunity to stick it to the arrogant Manc hordes. Sky TV pundits were practically in tears that their beloved team could have lost like that. We have now taken 6 points from them, after our great away win earlier in the season - if only we could do this for 38 games, we would be unstoppable as champions.