United drive home their total supremacy

When Arsenal come together for the galling task of analysing why their challenge to Manchester United has been washed away like a sandcastle at high tide, they will look back on this humiliation, remember the horrors of a record-equalling defeat and shudder with collective embarrassment.

By swatting Arsene Wenger's side like an irritating fly yesterday, Alex Ferguson's rampant team not only strutted a country mile clear of them at the top of the Premiership but scored six against Arsenal for the first time in nigh on half a century. The gap is now 16 points but in reality there were times here when it looked more like several light years.

For Arsenal it was nothing short of humiliating, as if they had stumbled into a different, more terrifying world. And if it was not humbling enough to be crushed so comprehensively, suffering the ignominy of conceding five goals inside the opening half and a hat-trick for Dwight Yorke in the first 22 minutes, this effectively ended all questions about the destiny of the Premiership. The opentop bus can be booked, the extra supplies of silver polish ordered; United's seventh title in nine years is now a formality.

"It's our best result of the season," said Ferguson. "Football can make you look a fool but I think that's Arsenal finished now. When you look at the points gap and the goal difference I think it will be impossible for them to catch us now."

Even by their usual haughty standards the sumptuous quality of United's attacking thrusts, in particular throughout an opening 45 minutes that was spellbinding, provided the sort of intoxicating stuff that comes along so rarely that Ferguson must wish it could be bottled.

Combined with a level of Arsenal defending that fluctuated between naive and absurd, the onslaught was almost relentless from the moment, only three minutes in, when Paul Scholes's ingenuity beat Arsenal's malfunctioning offside trap before laying on an open goal for the rejuvenated Yorke.

Old Trafford had waited a long time for Yorke to replicate his best form but after Thierry Henry had snaffled a 16thminute equaliser, flicking Robert Pires's pass beyond Fabien Barthez with the outside of his left foot, he became the pivotal figure, the foreman in a demolition job.

Within two minutes Roy Keane's long ball sent him sprinting clear, in the sort of space that will have given Wenger kittens, to entice David Seaman off his line and slide his shot beyond the goalkeeper.

Not for the first time Arsenal's defence had gone awol and when the bewildering Igor Stepanovs misjudged the trajectory of a long, raking ball from David Beckham, Yorke was off and running again to slip the ball past Seaman for the third, banishing all thoughts of a player on the decline.

The piece de resistance was concocted on 26 minutes. Yorke made a jackanapes of Stepanovs for the umpteenth time on the touchline and set off on the left before picking out Keane's lungbursting run with a splendid cross. The captain's finish combined power and precision and, like a funeral procession, Arsenal's fans were already trudging away into the Mancunian gloom.

United's record 6-1 victory against Arsenal had stood since April 1952 and, when Nicky Butt bamboozled Gilles Grimandi on the right to tee up Ole Solskjaer for the fifth, Old Trafford was overcome by the heady prospect of dusting off the history books by emulating, if not bettering, that scoreline.

It did not look like happening, however, for although United remained dominant after halftime they failed to find the same width or penetration. But after Solskjaer had cracked a shot against the upright, Teddy Sheringham, having replaced Yorke on 75 minutes, swept in the sixth in the dying seconds.

Battered and beleaguered, Arsenal had been put firmly in their place. For a side who pride themselves on their parsimonious nature, the case for their defence, without Adams, Keown and co, was frankly indefensible and the inquest into their league campaign promises to be both tortuous and torturous.

"Are you City in disguise?" crowed United's fans, and they could have been talking about York.

"I have had worse experiences but the size of the score makes this a very bad one," said Wenger. "Defensively we were too poor. Nobody was communicating, we had no leaders and there were times when we looked like a youth team. We are not into March yet and it hurts me that the title is already over. It's not good for the league and I'm not proud of that."

MAN UTD: Barthez, Gary Neville, Silvestre, Brown, Stam, Beckham, Butt, Keane (Chadwick 75), Scholes, Yorke (Sheringham 75), Solskjaer. Subs Not Used: Rachubka, Irwin, Phil Neville. Goals: Yorke 3, 18, 22, Keane 26, Solskjaer 38, Sheringham 90.

ARSENAL: Seaman, Luzhny, Cole (Ljungberg 45), Grimandi, Stepanovs, Pires, Vieira, Parlour (Vivas 69), Silvinho, Wiltord, Henry. Subs Not Used: Bergkamp, Manninger, Kanu. Goals: Henry 16. Att: 67,535.

Referee: P Durkin (Dorset).