Man Utd 2-1 Arsenal
A superb Owen Hargreaves free kick sealed a 2-1 win for Manchester United.
The opening minutes of the game set the scene for the rest of the first half, with Arsenal attacking brightly. Whilst United always looked a threat on the break, particularly through Rooney, Arsenal had the best of the first half chances.
Adebayor, Arsenal’s top scorer this season with 19 goals so far in the league, was guilty of squandering Arsenal’s best opportunities. Four times his team-mates put him in a position where he had the chance to score and each time the big Togolese striker failed to take advantage. Adebayor’s biggest disappointment came after some excellent work from Hleb running at the United defence on 34 minutes. Hleb was turning the United defence and drew them in, he slipped the ball to the right where Adebayor had time to compose himself before striking straight into Van der Sar.
Whilst Adebayor was looking off colour, Rooney looked sharp at the other end, making the most of the slightest opportunities. In fact, if it were not for the left heel of Lehmann, in for the injured Almunia, Rooney would have put United ahead against the run of play on 35 minutes when he managed to keep ahead of the backtracking Arsenal defenders and directed his shot towards the corner of the Arsenal goal.
The second half came to life straight away, Van Persie’s cross was left by Ferdinand and Van der Sar and Adebayor from a yard out got his head on the ball.
Within a matter of minutes, United were all square. Gallas handballed in the penalty box, and Ronaldo cooly hit the ball to Lehmann’s right, the keeper went the right way, but the pace and direction was too good for the German to stop.
Arsenal continued to push, and they almost inadvertently got the goal they were pushing for, Hleb drifted across the pitch and found Clichy coming deep on the left, his first time cross deflected off of Brown and Van der Sar did very well to get down and push the ball onto the post.
With 20 minutes to go, Hargreaves gets a rare opportunity on a free kick 20 yards out, he clips the ball over the wall into Lehmann’s bottom right hand side, the keeper didn’t move and United were ahead for the first time in the game.
Despite throwing everything at United in the final period of the game, Arsenal couldn’t find an opening and Manchester United finished Arsenal’s season and maintained their momentum in the run, which is now a two horse race with Chelsea.
