Second meeting between these two sides in a week, this time at Villa Park. It's the FA Cup semi finals, and Man U is without Ruud, while Arsenal is without Henry. Toure should have put Arsenal ahead within 3 minutes when he missed a header 2 feet out of an empty net. Not really empty because Carroll recovered very well. Then Pires missed a great chance with a lousy header after Bergkamp sent a cross in. This was followed by Silvestre's handball in the area which went unnoticed. And then, in Man U's only good move of the match, they scored with a typical Scholes goal: a rembat from the edge of the box.

Second half started the same way the first half did, with Arsenal doing all the attacking. Again, chance after chance going to waste. Then, substitution time, Aliadiere off for Reyes, and Pires off for Henry. For the next 10 minutes, Arsenal was attacking all the way, but just could not find a way through the Man U defence, which played quite well, although Silvestre still sucked. And, again, he went away unpunished with another handball in the area. Then, it was Kanu on for Edu. With Bergkamp, Reyes, Henry and Kanu, Arsenal was still unable to break down the Man U defence. And I repeat: Silvestre sucks.

Overall, not exactly the performance of champions by Man U, but was still enough to win the game. Poor finishing by Arsenal let them down in the end. So, this is not the year of the treble. It was a long shot after all. Perhaps a double? We'll see...