Ronaldo leads Reds’ march on Rome

A YEAR after the Reds took Moscow, they’re about to march on Rome. And no-one can deny Manchester United’s right to be there. Least of all, Arsene Wenger.

We were assured by their manager that we would see a different Arsenal last night to the one which was almost blown away at Old Trafford. And we did. They were worse. The roof fell in on the Emirates while the sky was still bright blue, and the Gunners spent the rest of a long, darkening night simply trying to pick up the pieces.

The result is another year in North London without the ultimate prize and a fourth year without any silverware whatsoever to show for Wenger’s grand project. Little wonder that talk of work in progress cut little ice with the faithful – on either the work or the progress front – as they headed off early up the Holloway Road, leaving gaps in the Emirates stands almost as conspicuous as the ones in their team’s rearguard.

To rub salt in the Londoners’ wounds, it wasn’t as if they were destroyed by an especially scintillating United performance. This was more like a bit of routine business for the defending champions: a couple of early goals, a couple of moments of brilliance from Ronaldo and another night of mostly restful ease for Edwin van der Sar, at least until it didn’t really matter.

When the United keeper was finally beaten, 12 minutes from the end, it was only from the penalty spot and after an act of refereeing generosity to the losing side which was altogether more harsh on Darren Fletcher, wrongly red–carded for his last ditch tackle on Cesc Fabregas and now set to miss the final – unless the referee shows a change of heart in his official report to UEFA this morning.

But, on a night when anything that could go wrong for Arsenal did go wrong, Robin van Persie had barely struck the consolation goal than he was forced to leave the pitch injured.

The extent of the gulf in strength in depth separating these two clubs has rarely been more cruelly exposed. With a place in the final of European club football’s biggest competition at stake, Ferguson could afford to leave both Carlos Tevez and Dimitar Berbatov on the bench. By contrast, how Wenger would have loved to have had the cup-tied Andrey Arshavin on call or even his fine full-back Gael Clichy.

The Gunners boss clearly didn’t see this as an insurmountable obstacle. Indeed, in his match programme notes he seemed cockily determined to flout all the conventional wisdom going into the game. “Ideally we would like to keep a clean sheet tonight,” he wrote, “but I don’t necessarily think that’s the only way we can go through – I believe we can score three goals.”

The ink was barely dry on the page before Arsenal needed to score four, as United shocked the Emirates with a double whammy, literally scoring with their first two attempts on goal. Early self-destruction meant that Wenger’s dream would be about as close as Arsenal would get to fantasy football all night. Rippling fields of red and white flags all around the ground might have greeted the Gunners as they came out but it wasn’t long before the players themselves were flagging rather more desperately.

In fact, the game was only eight minutes old when Ronaldo, raiding up Arsenal’s vulnerable right side, pulled a diagonal ball back across the box and, when young Kieran Gibbs completely lost his footing on the other side, Ji Sung Park was able to pounce and scoop the ball back into the far corner of the net.

Four minutes later, Wenger’s dream turned into a nightmare, as a Ronaldo free-kick special beat Manuel Almunia, the hero of Old Trafford, at his near post. With not even a quarter of an hour gone, barring a European comeback of Liverpudlian proportions from Arsenal, this Champions’ League semi-final was done and dusted.

And it could have been worse before the break, had not Almunia’s great one-handed save denied Wayne Rooney’s curling effort while, from the resulting corner, Ronaldo should have done much better with a free header, as Arsenal’s shell-shocked defence threatened to fall to pieces.

Poor Gibbs made way for Emmanuel Eboue at the start of the second half, but by now Wenger was simply reduced to rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Soon Almunia was bailing out his porous defence again, as he saved low at his post from a rampant Ronaldo but, after Arsenal had enjoyed a modest period of territorial dominance, the ‘keeper could do nothing to stop the Portuguese from putting the finishing touch to a sensational United counter, as he raced half the length of the pitch to blast Rooney’s pinpoint pass to the roof of the net.

Those supporters who decided to leave missed the consolation goal but not much else. For United fans, the joy of going to Rome might be tempered by longer-term worries about how their team will fare should Ronaldo subsequently take a hike of a different kind.

The French international Frank Ribery might possess the application to match his prodigious talent but, like Ronaldo, will he deliver the crucial goals at crucial times in the crucial games? One thing’s for sure: Arsenal would love the luxury of such concerns.

Subs for Arsenal: Eboué for Gibbs, h/t; Bendtner for Walcott, 63; Vela for Van Persie

Subs not used: Fabianski, Silvestre, Diaby, Denilson.

Subs for Man Utd: Giggs for Anderson for 63; Rafael Da Silva for Evra, 65; Berbatov for Rooney, 66.

Subs not used: Kuszczak, Evans, Scholes, Tevez.

Referee: Roberto Rosetti (Italy).