The Ultimate XI - Arsenal v Manchester United during Arsene Wenger's reign

Ahead of Sunday’s Arsenal v Manchester United showdown, we take a look at Arsene Wenger’s best team versus a greatest United team during his time in charge of the Gunners since September 1996.

“Lads, it’s Tottenham”. That’s all Sir Alex Ferguson needed to say at one team talk before Manchester United played Spurs. A three-word team talk. The inference was clear. It’s only Tottenham, go and win. Which United did.

Ferguson would never have said the same about Tottenham’s North London rivals, Arsenal. No team posed as great a threat so consistently during his 26 years at United as the Gunners, who entertain United on Sunday.

United and Arsenal had epic battles throughout the 90s and noughties. The 1999 FA Cup semi-finals remain two of United’s greatest ever games, settled by one of the club’s greatest ever goals by Ryan Giggs. United and Arsenal were England’s best two sides by a distance.

“Arsene Wenger was reinventing the game, apparently,” wrote Roy Keane in his second autobiography. “The previous Arsenal teams, under George Graham and Bruce Rioch, had been a rigid 4-4-2. Now, under Wenger, they had more pace, they had movement. They were changing not just the face of Arsenal but the face of the Premiership. They could hurt you quicker now. Arsenal took counter attacking to a new level. And they were a team of big characters, big personalities. Vieira, Keown, Campbell, Adams, Henry. They might just have an edge over us.”

Gary Neville concurs. Wenger accused Gary and his brother Phil of ‘deliberately kicking’ Jose Reyes in Old Trafford’s infamous ‘Battle of the Buffet’ match.

“Arsene Wenger’s deliberate kicking is our aggressive stance against an opponent,” responded Neville when I asked him about this. “It’s quite simple: Arsenal were a better team than us in playing football and we knew full well that we had to find a way to win the match. We didn’t need to overstep the mark because the officials were there to issue fouls, yellow and red cards. And even if we did kick Reyes, they had another ten players who could deal with it. I remember times when Martin Keown or Tony Adams or Steve Bould gave our forwards a whack.

“From 1996 to 2001 were the best encounters because there were no holds barred and nobody was whinging. Then Arsenal changed. In 2003 they became a little more precious because they thought nobody could touch them. They didn’t have players who could stand up for them as much and that’s what we still see today. The fact that a manager thinks we kicked them out of the game is more a reflection on them than us.”

Respect still ran deep between the clubs.

“Thierry Henry would always be singled out in team talks before we played Arsenal,” recalled former Arsenal and Manchester United striker Andy Cole. “Sir Alex Ferguson would insist that we didn’t give Henry any space. My Manchester United team mates decided that Henry was arrogant – which he’s not by the way - and should be punished for that. We all wanted to level him at the start of the game so that he would be less effective. What we really meant was that he was Arsenal’s best player and wanted to stop him being a threat as quickly as possible. That was a back-handed compliment.

“Henry had everything,” adds Cole. “He was blisteringly quick, he could beat a player, could come deep, run at defenders and had the best technique in the league. He scored one goal against us, a volley which he set up for himself at Highbury, that remains one of the best goals I’ve ever seen. He turned and shot from outside the area past his French team mate Fabien Barthez. It stunned us because we’d been doing well in the game too, but we lost that one, though we still won the league.”

Here’s my choice as the best two XIs since Wenger took charge.

Arsenal:
David Seaman; Bacary Sagna, Tony Adams, Sol Campbell, Ashley Cole; Freddie Ljungberg, Patrick Vieira ©, Emmanuel Petit, Robert Pires; Thierry Henry, Denis Bergkamp.

Manchester United:
Peter Schmeichel; Gary Neville, Nemanja Vidic, Rio Ferdinand, Patrice Evra; David Beckham, Roy Keane ©, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs; Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney.

Who would win?

Impossible to say. Both teams are packed with brilliance. And what about those who’ve missed out?: Ruud van Nistelrooy, Lauren, Andy Cole, Kanu, Denis Irwin, Martin Keown, Jaap Stam, Bacary Sagna, Gary Pallister, Marc Overmars, Dwight Yorke, Lee Dixon, Michael Carrick, Nicolas Anelka, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Cesc Fabregas, Teddy Sheringham, Edwin van der Sar.

Why no Cantona for United?

Arsene Wenger, who became the longest serving manager in English football when his nemesis Sir Alex Ferguson retired in May 2013, took charge on September 30, 1996. Of course Eric Cantona would be in Ferguson’s greatest XI, but he retired in May 1997. So do you have eight months of Eric - and they were some of his best moments at United in a season where he played 50 times and scored 15 goals as United won the league and reached the semi-finals of the Champions League. Or 11 years of Wayne Rooney?

Other notable omissions?

Phil Neville. Stick with us. Or rather, read this from Diego Forlan. “In 2002 we played champions Arsenal in a league game. I was disappointed to be dropped to the bench. I’d scored both goals at Anfield the week before and I felt I was finding my way in England.

“Phil was named in central midfield to play against Patrick Vieira. Maybe he started because of terrible injuries in our team. Quinton Fortune, who would have been great in an aggressive game, had broken his leg. Roy Keane, the captain, was also out. As were David Beckham, Nicky Butt and Rio Ferdinand.

“Carlos Queiroz, a tactically shrewd coach, told us that the game would be won in the middle. Sir Alex Ferguson saw it like a chess game and knew Phil wouldn’t let him down.

“We were missing so many players yet Phil was incredible, the outstanding man on the pitch. Arsenal had scored in their 56 previous games but they didn’t score that day with Phil intercepting the ball, tackling so hard that the crowd stood up and roared. He was winning the ball from everybody, aggressive, but in a controlled way. When Thierry Henry complained to the referee about Phil, we knew that we had the better of Arsene Wenger’s champions. We won 2-0.”

In 1998, Marc Overmars scored a goal at Old Trafford 11 minutes from time which blew apart the title race. United were strong favourites to retain the title, but Overmars’ goal and the deserved Arsenal win left the Gunners six points behind United but with three games in hand.

“This was a great result for us. But you don’t win the Premier League against Manchester United; you have to beat the other clubs,” Overmars said. Ferguson doubted that they could, but Arsenal did win and went onto lift the title. The fleet-heeled Dutchman was the best player that day, but would he get in a best Arsenal XI ahead of the Swede Ljungberg?

Great battles?

Every time. One of the finest was in February 2005 and, according to Sir Alex the best-ever game since the Premiership began, not that anyone knew what to expect - or what colour United would even be wearing. In five seasons between 2000 and 2005 United played at Highbury in shirts of five different hues. Cue the usual rip-off stories in the papers. Now, it’s not even a story that United change their kits every year.

United beat Arsenal 4-2 that night with goals from Ronaldo (2), Rooney and O’Shea. Vieira and Bergkamp got Arsenal’s two. The United team was: Roy Carroll; Gary Neville, Mikael Silvestre (sent off), Rio Ferdinand, Gabriel Heinze; Darren Fletcher (John O’Shea), Roy Keane, Paul Scholes; Cristiano Ronaldo (Wes Brown), Ryan Giggs (Louis Saha), Wayne Rooney.

“There’s no wimps in my team,” said Ferguson after the match. There weren’t any in the tunnel when Keane accused 6’4” Vieira of trying to intimidate 5’11” Gary Neville before the game. Roy intervened, squaring up to the Frenchman in the tunnel. He told Vieira in his gentle Cork brogue to pick someone his own size. Like him. Roy is the same height as Gary Neville. Roy went on to be man of the match.

The two teams met again a few months later in the FA Cup final, a game somehow won by Arsenal. Arsenal didn’t win a trophy from then on until they beat Hull and Villa in the last two FA Cup finals, they haven’t won the league since 2004.

The newly rich Manchester City and Chelsea have rocked the hegemony once enjoyed by United and Arsenal and it’s stark how many of my best XIs’ have players no longer playing, but Arsenal and United remain the most successful English clubs of the last quarter of a century.