This afternoon’s 3-1 defeat of Arsenal  by Manchester United had shades of their Champions League semi-final victory of May. A surprisingly comfortable victory, lethal counter-attacking football and a winger orchestrating the goals. In May it was Ronaldo, today it was  Nani. A quite superb all round performance as Sir Alex Ferguson got it spot on tactically – should Wayne Rooney have another man up front with him? Should Ryan Giggs have started in place of Scholes? Ferguson rightly called no and when things weren’t quite working, moving Paul Scholes further up produced United’s devastating spell of dominance in the first-half, one that set up an important victory.

Final of the Carling Cup, and now one point behind Chelsea at the top of the Premier League – as the old saying goes: never write off Manchester United.