Late starters Arsenal in seventh heaven

Arsenal - 2 Manchester Utd - 1:This Premiership season is baffling its audience with the finesse of a great illusionist. Manchester United, who looked for much of the day as if they had too much know-how for the opposition, were transformed into losers over the closing seven minutes.

Elsewhere, of course, authoritative Chelsea have been turned into bumblers, but the deficit for them has at least been kept at six points thanks to Arsenal's stoppage-time winner.

Arsene Wenger's promising line-up is still at the development stage and it appeared that the manager would take no more from this fixture than notes on all the areas needing improvement. Many visitors to the Emirates leave just one player in attack once the ball has been lost, but United had not been bogged down and, thanks to the passing of men like Michael Carrick, they could sit deep without becoming vulnerable.

Or so it looked. While an opener from Wayne Rooney did not inspire an immediate surge from Arsenal, there is talent in the ranks and it can always splutter into life. With 83 minutes gone, Tomas Rosicky's deep, low cross from the right was beautifully converted by the substitute Robin van Persie from an angle beyond the far post.

By then nothing could be trusted any more, not even the apparently failsafe defending of Nemanja Vidic. It was equally unwise to assume Thierry Henry was stuck in the doldrums. Emmanuel Eboue worked a one-two with Rosicky and Henry exploited a pocket of space behind the Serb to head the full-back's delivery high beyond Edwin van der Sar.

Van Persie had broken a metatarsal while equalising but jubilation cannot be quashed after a victory such as this. All new grounds require folklore to endow them with an identity. Memories have to accrue before fans can feel wholly at home.

Henry's finish here could be the first incident to make the Emirates resonant for supporters.

It was all the better for the fact that it capped a comeback that seemed beyond reach, although after the opener United no longer had so much appetite for pushing men up to help the lone centre-forward Henrik Larsson.

Arsenal had been toothless. It is ironic that their goal should eventually come from the flanks, since width was a quality they generally lacked. Henry, too, had been far from deadly. When Emmanuel Adebayor bent a cross to the back post after 33 minutes the captain's header was so poorly directed that Van der Sar barely had to dive to block it.

Those with an academic's taste might claim the fixture was absorbing at that juncture and it is true that United then had a decent balance between caution and sensible enterprise. Even if Cristiano Ronaldo offered little, the visitors hinted at more menace than Arsenal for the bulk of the afternoon. In first-half stoppage time Jens Lehmann had to touch a Rooney half-volley behind, via the top of the crossbar, after his clearing punch had dropped to the forward. From the ensuing corner by Ryan Giggs the German goalkeeper needed to dive to his left to parry a Larsson header.

Arsenal had nothing much to look back on other than speculative grievances. Henry wanted a penalty in the 37th minute when Gary Neville stuck out a leg and then pulled it away again, but it was hard to tell if there had been significant contact.

In view of the course of the match, it made sense that United should go on to take the lead.

With 53 minutes gone, Ronaldo passed down the left to the overlapping Patrice Evra and his long delivery was headed home from an angle by the poorly marked Rooney. The visitors had the aura then of a seasoned team and no one could have supposed that the steady and accomplished Evra would find Arsenal exploiting his flank in their recovery.

The goals for Wenger's side, all the same, were nudges to remind observers of the quality this manager possesses. They were agonising pokes in the ribs to United, who could not have anticipated such telling crosses or such sharp marksmanship by Van Persie and Henry. As it is, United have been beaten home and away by Arsenal in this Premiership campaign. That is out of kilter with the authority Ferguson's line-up has exuded over recent months and this game, as well, had largely gone to plan before everything went radically wrong.

United must have departed in puzzlement, unsure whether to be thankful for a good lead over Chelsea in late January or furious that they had not rammed home the advantage over Jose Mourinho's shaky champions.

Guardian Service