Fergie needs no motivation to halt Gunners bandwagon

IF Alex Ferguson needed stark evidence that the standards he has imbued at Manchester United have slipped, then it would have arrived as he sat in the Stamford Bridge stand, along with assistant Walter Smith, last Wednesday.

All the talk was of whether Chelsea or Arsenal were best placed to represent Britain in a Champions League semi-final. All the conjecture was about the future of Claudio Ranieri and the shrewdness of Arsene Wenger, which has seen Arsenal equal the record of Leeds and Liverpool with 29 unbeaten matches from the start of the season.

One more against Manchester United on Sunday will see them hailed for the most invincible sequence of results in a league season in English football.