Enthralling night of spite and skill

Thank goodness they were only playing for second place. Not that you would ever have known it. The intensity, the spite and the sheer unremitting physical commitment spoke of two teams for whom everything might have been at stake last night.

It made an enthralling spectacle, but also one that contained the potential for an explosion at any moment, a flame constantly flickering close to the shortest of fuses.

Last night we again saw a contest between two clubs of very different temperaments, each one essentially an expression of their manager's character. Where Arsenal were all subtle flicks and carefully calculated angles, United attacked the match with an astonishing ferocity expressed in yellow cards for Gabriel Heinze and Ryan Giggs within three minutes of each other midway through the opening half, with Wayne Rooney somewhat fortunate not to join them a minute later.

Few would have changed places with referee Graham Poll last night, required to arbitrate on the latest instalment of English football's most vicious feud. His first decision came in the tunnel beforehand when he had to intervene between Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira.

Keane spoke of the incident later, telling Sky Sports: "I don't want to go into too much detail but Patrick Vieira is 6ft 4in and having a go at Gary Neville. So I said, 'have a go at me'.

"If they think Gary Neville's an easy target, I'm not having it." Keane was pleased with United's

performance and felt they could have won more convincingly had Silvestre not been sent off.

He added: "I think, especially in the second half, we kept the ball moving and if Mikael had not

been sent off, we could have scored more." Despite the win United are still eight points behind

Barclays Premiership leaders Chelsea but Keane added: "We will keep going." after eight seconds, when he adjudged Darren Fletcher to have barged into Patrick Vieira as Arsenal's captain unwisely dallied on the ball in the centre circle. Within 20 seconds there was a second free-kick for the home side as Freddie Ljungberg went down, claiming contact from Heinze's elbow.

And so it went on, each tackle raising the temperature as arms went up and angry voices competed for the referee's attention.

And within the maelstrom, a great deal of remarkable football was being played as the two teams struggled for the victory that would keep them in with a theoretical chance of challenging Chelsea for the title.

To judge from the pre-match words of two of their senior players, there seemed to be more than a hint of ambivalence lurking behind Arsenal's approach to the evening. Reflecting on their recent altercations, Dennis Bergkamp said: "We can move on from things. That is the main strength of our team."

Move on? Not according to Sol Campbell. "It's just more bitter and personal against United," he said on Monday. "There's an edge. After all that's happened, if we beat them it will be one of our sweetest ever wins - especially because of how we lost to them up there."

It was certainly Campbell's attitude which showed itself more clearly once the game started. All the frustrations and humiliations endured at Old Trafford were focused into a performance of rigour and dynamism, reaching fruition first in Vieira's glancing header to Thierry Henry's corner and then in the calm shot through Roy Carroll's legs with which Bergkamp restored their lead before half-time.

The visitors, no less skilful, placed greater reliance on an endless series of physical challenges. Rooney's presence in such a match, however, is like a spark looking for a tinderbox. His covering and closing down were magnificent, but the occasion was always likely to arouse his most combative instincts and it was no surprise when Poll showed him a yellow card for persistent fouling shortly before half-time, a couple of minutes after he had turned inside Ashley Cole, carried the ball into the area and hit a shot against the body of Manuel Almunia.

Cole, the subject of the week's big news story, received a warm reception during the pre-match introductions, the Highbury fans seeming to have taken no offence at the news of his alleged dalliance with Chelsea. If he signs a new contract with Arsenal, taking him beyond a current deal that expires in 2007, all will be forgotten.

Not that matters were clarified yesterday when Peter Kenyon, Chelsea's chief executive, told a radio reporter that he would neither confirm nor deny the club's reported contact with Cole. "We're not going to add to the speculation," he said. "We don't want to debate it any further because that is club policy." Which could be taken as a pretty firm yes.

"You may have seen the news stories about Ashley Cole," Wenger wrote in last night's programme, "and all I would say is that I have spoken to him and he is committed to this football club."

A day earlier the manager had floated the somewhat whimsical notion that winning the European Cup with Arsenal would mean more to Cole than winning it with Chelsea because it would represent more of a challenge.

Last night, however, there were no signs of any lack of commitment from Cole or anyone else.