Arsenal vs Manchester United - Emirates Stadium, London - Tuesday 5th May 2009

Without a doubt, the biggest game at Emirates Stadium so far. More than likely, Arsenal's biggest home game since Anderlecht in 1970, a game which I (like many) wasn't alive for, and which even fewer Arsenal fans actually remember. Having lost the first leg at Old Trafford, Arsenal knew they needed either to win this game by 2 goals, or get a 1-0 win, which would of course involve stopping Rooney, Ronaldo and co from scoring. Tough stuff.

As requested, the fans were in the stadium early, building up the singing to the point where the ground was rocking when the teams came out. The flags, one on every Arsenal fan's seat, looked good, and the whistles made it an uncomfortable place for Man United to have the ball. The game kicked off, and Arsenal started taking the game to United - looking generally pretty positive for the first 5 to 10 minutes.

Then, after about 10 minutes, Kieron Gibbs slipped over in the box (as defenders do from time to time), and gifted an easy ball to Park Ji Sung to finish. 2-0 on aggregate, an away goal, and Arsenal needed three goals to go through. That completely burst the bubble of enthusiasm and confidence for both the team and the fans. Three minutes later, Ronaldo scored one of those free kicks that is really pretty hard for a keeper to do much about, to make it 2-0 on the night, 3-0 on aggregate, and the tie practically finished. So much anticipation, nervousness, and so many hopes for what Arsenal might do in the game - and the entire game plan had gone out of the window inside 10 minutes.

After that, the rest of the game was a complete let down from an Arsenal fans perspective. We huffed and puffed, didn't create a whole lot, and looked vulnerable whenever United broke at pace into our half. The third United goal came in the second half, one of those breakaway goals that Arsenal used to score when we had Pires and Henry. But, to be fair, it was the kind of goal you concede when you are busy chasing four goals at the other end. Arsenal didn't necessarily set themselves up wrong, or approach the game wrong, it was more that the whole plan had gone wrong before the game was even 15 minutes old. It is always going to be very difficult to recover from something like that.

Still, every cloud has a silver lining - Arsenal did score one goal, a penalty, for which Darren Fletcher received a very harsh red card, which will keep him out of the final. Obviously, it would have been much more fun had it been Rooney, Ronaldo, Ferdinand or one of the more odious Mancs, but there we go. All in all, a disappointing tie for Arsenal - we didn't really create very much across both legs; United defended far too well for the likes of Walcott and Adebayor to get any change at all out of them; and given the number of chances they created, they deserved to go through. For Arsenal, there's always next year, hopefully with more experience, and better luck.