so last night was another surprise: manchester united rampant, arsenal pedestrian. a home win that was, for the most part, entirely comfortable. certainly not what was anticipated in these parts - for a variety of reasons.
united were excellent in patches, particularly during an opening twenty minutes in which they tore into the arsenal rearguard. with anderson prominent, suddenly and unexpectedly reinvigorated alongside a michael carrick, whose full range of passing and unerring vision - both offensive and defensive - was on diplay, and the usual exhibition of perpetual motion from darren fletcher, united took an iron grip on the midfield. what helped was the presence of carlos tevez upfront, whose presence drove their tempo and workrate into another gear, always pressing and always running, harrying arsene wenger's team from the off and not letting up until a deserved goal was scored. whilst the argentine frequently displayed that lack of quality that makes his £30m price tag such a laughable proposition, missing an absolute sitter and often finding his touch flawed, his graft gave united the balance they needed (and the balance they often lack with berbatov up front). down the flanks, rooney was again superb, frequently burrowing inside bacary sagna but such a consistent threat that the full-back simply couldn't leave him alone, and ronaldo - as with many games this season - ostentatiously flashed his abilities, the odd flick and run here, a shot crashed against the bar there. at the back, patrice evra was obscenely effective, turning in possibly his best defensive performance this season, unfazed by the pace of walcott outside.
for arsenal, the opposite applied, with the defense looking shaky and possession either squandered as quick as possible, with too many aimless balls from touré looking for an isolated adebayor, or as slow as possible, with massed ranks of united midfielders easily resisting the more prolonged periods of walking pace passing. the struggles were many: full-backs had to be conservative due to the threat of rooney and ronaldo, whilst adebayor and abou diaby were woeful, and walcott spectacularly nullified by the outstanding evra. as such, fabregas was totally isolated, flittering between adebayor and nasri, feeding on scraps, his influence and passing wasted as arsenal failed to support. meanwhile, mickael silvestre was shaky - as always - and arsenal really suffered due to alex song playing too high up the pitch, getting sucked into making tackles in the domain of michael carrick rather than sitting deeper and preventing rooney and tevez turning and running at the back four. cumulatively, this allowed united to pile forward whenever they sensed a chance, but also to sit back and repel the hopeless arsenal attacks.
1-0, in a general sense, is a good result in a two-legged semi-final when you factor in the impact of away goals. yet, in all likelihood, arsenal will probably feel satisfied with that scoreline when they watch the DVDs back today. they were never even close, and will need a shocking transformation at the emirates to transform the tie into something even slightly competitive. they'll need to reorganise the team - moving diaby to the bench would be a good start, but they will be praying robin van persie returns to give them a bit more balance and would do well to consider giving carlos vela a chance to present his best andrey arshavin impression.
united, on the other hand, would do well to simply trot out the same line-up. beat that. such was their domination that at this point every single member of that xi deserves their place in united's first choice team, having been party to one of the most coherent performances produced by the side in months. but arsenal must try, and given this represents the sole chance of glory this season for arsene's wenger's men, they are going to have to try quite hard.
it will be an interesting couple of days.
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