United Marches On To Rome

Arsenal 1 - Manchester United 3
Scorers
Arsenal: Van Persie (pen 76)
Manchester United: Park (8), Ronaldo (11, 61)

Red Card: Fletcher (75)

Team: Van der Sar, Rio, Vidic, Evra (Rafael 65), O'Shea, Fletcher, Carrick, Anderson (Giggs 63), Park, Ronaldo, Rooney (Berbatov 66)

Simply superb result. Arsenal hardly knew what hit them. Park and Ronaldo give us a huge huge advantage early in the game that sunk all Arsenal's hopes of overturning the first leg deficit.

The first was via a counter attack and a lucky slip by Gibbs that allowed Park the room and time to score, and the second came from a thunderous freekick by Ronaldo just moments later.

With the tie basically sewn up early, the young Gunners lost their will and Wenger's promise of a seige didn't materialise.

Arsenal did try to salvage some pride in the second half, but a perfect counter-attacking move, involving Park, Rooney and ending with Ronaldo sealed the Arsenal fate. Three goals down and needing5 to progress, they were well and truely finished.

Ferguson rung in the changes, saving players who had yellows from picking up silly fouls and missing the finals. Both teams were content to go thru the motions and see the game out.

Then the referee had other ideas of his own. He awarded a penalty to Arsenal and sent Fletcher off. The penalty looked about right, but the red card was just plain silly. What he did was just open a can of worms. Van Persie pulled one back, but the game went downhill from then.

Both teams started making silly fouls and the referee didn't help matters by going whistle-happy at the slightest infringement. The last 15 minutes of the game felt like a freaking eternity. Thankfully we survived it unscathed.

With the champions league finals out of the way until the season ends, we can now fully concentrate on defending the Premiership title, beginning this weekend against a 'massive club'.