With Manchester United leading by one goal to nil, I’m afraid it could have been much worse for us had it not been for Almunia, who produced a number of fine saves to deny the Red Devils. But, at the end of the first half, the lads started to actually move the ball better, gaining the confidence required for such a game and hopefully, Wenger’s magic will do the trick during the break.

The home side meant business immediately and after two minutes, a Gibbs slip gave ample space to Cristiano Ronaldo, who luckily, failed to deliver. With United pushing forward, it was Tevez who went close in the 16th minute but from very close range, his effort was bravely saved by Almunia. Unfortunately, from the resulting corner, John O’Shea is left totally unmarked and makes no mistake in finding the roof of the net.

In the 26th minute we created out first chance. A nice Adebayor-Fabregas move sees the captain trying his luck from long range by van der Sar was ready to block. Two minutes after that it was Almunia again, this time from a close range header by Cristiano Ronaldo, with the Spaniard quick on his foot to agian deny the Portuguese.

As the half progressed, it was us who actually started to get more time on the ball, passing the ball around and trying to find spaces to infiltrate the United back four, but our attempts produced no end product.

I want to look at the glass half full at the end of the half. Gibbs may have had a shocking start but you expect it from such an inexperienced youngster, although he recovered well from that. Song has been immense in midfield, but this comes to no surprise as we had a lot of defending to do, reason why the likes of Fabregas, Nasri and Walcott saw very little of the ball. Adebayor has been disappointing once more. Yes, he’s a lonely striker in all-defending contest but damn it, he needs to help the midfield and run more. Not sure how to evaluate Diaby’s game, surely it’s much better than what we saw lately from the tall guy.

At half time, it’s Manchester United one, Arsenal nil.