United will be well up for glamour clash with Gunners

IT may well be the glamour tie of the FA Cup fifth round but a home draw against holders Arsenal was the last thing Manchester United wanted.

United were first out of the pot at English FA headquarters yesterday with all the remaining non-top-flight clubs praying they would be next and handed a money-spinning trip to Old Trafford, a small price to pay for the likely end of their own FA Cup hopes for another season.

Yet as so often with the Cup, few could have predicted what would come next and it was not what United's deputy chief executive David Gill wanted to hear.

"Personally I'm very disappointed," Gill said. "When ball 12 came out first I thought, 'Great home draw.' Then we said that we didn't want eight (Chelsea), 11 or Liverpool's number. Eleven came out - Arsenal."

Gill added: "I know that we'd probably have had to beat them at some point to win the cup, but I would have preferred an easier draw at this point.

"It's at home, though, and we've got a good record at home in the cup. It will be a fantastic game with arguably the two best teams in the country going head to head.

"We're looking forward to it the players will be well up for it."

United got the better of Arsenal the last time the two sides met in the competition four years ago, Alex Ferguson's men coming through courtesy of a Ryan Giggs extra-time wonder-goal in their semi-final replay at Villa Park.

No doubt the clash between the holders and the record 10-time winners will be screened live one way or another over the weekend of February 15 and 16, with the Gunners having some unfinished business after their last visit to Old Trafford ended in a 2-0 defeat back in December.

Elsewhere in the last 16, last year's losing finalists Chelsea, joint-favourites along with United, have been drawn away to Division One strugglers Stoke.

Liverpool, should they win their replay against Crystal Palace, face the winners of the Leeds and Gillingham replay.

Following their win over Coventry, Third Division Rochdale did not manage to draw a dream tie against Premiership opposition after they were pulled out of the pot away at Wolves.

Meanwhile, Arsenal's Giovanni van Bronckhorst has a more pressing concern than the 5th round draw - tomorrow's crucial Premiership meeting with Liverpool at Anfield where the Gunners will be looking to prove a point to Alex Ferguson, for one.

The United manager aimed a sly dig at the Premiership leaders recently, pointing out how United had been benefiting from more sources of goals than the Gunners.

However van Bronckhorst insisted Arsenal were not a one-man team, with an over-reliance on Thierry Henry, as he looked to end Liverpool's "last chance" of reviving their fading title hopes.

While Henry has struck 23 times so far this season, Arsenal's next highest scorer is Sylvain Wiltord, with eight to his name, of which just two have come since mid-September.

Robert Pires and Kanu, meanwhile, both have six goals and Dennis Bergkamp and Francis Jeffers have only four each. Van Bronckhorst nevertheless insisted: "Thierry is a great player and has scored many goals but people shouldn't forget what kind of team he's got around him.

"Everybody works hard to get him into the positions to score. Whether it's Thierry who scores or somebody else, it makes no difference. The main target is to win the game and how that happens doesn't matter. "

Van Bronckhorst may lose his left-back role tomorrow night when Ashley Cole returns from a two-match ban.