The long, scoreless Sunday lunchtime which failed to separate Arsenal and Manchester United yesterday has left Highbury licking its lips while Old Trafford must be starting to wonder if it has not got too much on its plate. A replayed FA Cup semi-final, especially against Arsenal, was the last thing Alex Ferguson wanted at this stage.
A combination of poor finishing and an aberrant offside flag conspired to deny United the place at Wembley that their sharper and more imaginative attacking play demanded. Even after the dismissal of Nelson Vivas five minutes into extra-time, Ferguson's team still could not find the accuracy and composure near goal to outwit the Premiership's tightest defence. It was a familiar situation for Arsenal, for whom it was the 10th red card of the season and the 22nd of Arsene Wenger's two-and-a-half years as manager.
Practice always did make perfect and, once the Argentinian, who had occupied the suspended Emmanuel Petit's position in midfield, had gone, a scoreless two hours was more or less guaranteed. Arsenal merely defended with even greater determination, content in the knowledge that Petit will back for Wednesday's replay and happy to see their principal championship rivals forced into another big match.
Manchester United will doubtless be concerned about the effects of a replay on the away leg of their Champions League semi-final against Juventus on Wednesday week. Yesterday, to compound the situation, they lost Denis Irwin with a knee injury.
All might have been so much simpler for Manchester United had they not had what appeared to be a perfectly legal goal disallowed seven minutes before halftime.
This was the way of it: Beckham, having strayed across to the left wing, released Giggs, whereupon the linesman raised his flag. Giggs was not offside but Dwight Yorke in the middle clearly was. Giggs took the ball on, the flag went down, and from the Welshman's centre Yorke, now onside, headed down to Keane, who drove a shot into the roof of the net.
Elleray at first gave the goal but the flag had been raised again and after consulting with his linesman the referee awarded Arsenal a free-kick. United were as much puzzled as angry. If Giggs had not played the ball when Yorke was offside, how could offside then be given in what was surely a separate situation? Presumably the linesman felt that in getting his head to Giggs's cross Yorke then had to be pulled up for falling offside in the first place. If so it was a piece of retrospective legislation which stretched the game's statutes of limitation.
That said, Manchester United should still have reached Wembley. While Arsenal defended with their usual discipline and efficiency, the absence of Petit burdened Patrick Vieira with the task of creating an attacking momentum against the combined strength of Roy Keane and the excellent Nicky Butt.
With Dennis Bergkamp's search for space restricted by Jaap Stam and Marc Overmars unable to exploit the booking Gary Neville received for fouling him twice in the second minute, Arsenal took a long time to create a clear chance.
Not so Manchester United. As early as the eighth minute Cole deftly turned a cross into the path of Giggs, whose shot cleared the bar. In stoppage time at the end of the first half Yorke exchanged passes with Cole to leave himself with just David Seaman to beat, but his finishing was timid.
In the opening minute of the second half Cole failed to make proper contact as he met Gary Neville's low cross and on the hour Cole wasted a further opportunity after Beckham and Giggs had exposed a rare gap in the middle of Arsenal's defence.
The opening period of extra-time saw United attacking but the second might have produced an unlikely winning goal after Berkgamp sent Fredrik Ljungberg, who had replaced Overmars in the 89th minute, clear. The Swede should have scored but delayed his shot, allowing Peter Schmeichel to narrow the angle and make the save.
Victory at that point would have flattered Arsenal, but they are still not going to yield either half of the Double that easily.
United boss Alex Ferguson grudgingly accepted the disallowed goal verdict but admitted that the incident was "quite amazing".
Before seeing a video replay, he said: "People who have seen it have told me that it was a ridiculous decision. I want to see it myself."
But after being shown the TV clip, he then added: "Oh well, that's it, if it's offside then that's it, it's not a goal and we've just got to get on with it and come back here again."
Wenger said: "To me, it was very clear why it was disallowed. The linesman had his flag up for a long time and the only controversy was that after a while, he took it down.
"If the referee had seen him earlier, there would be no need to even talk about it. I certainly can't say that there should be any complaints."
Ferguson was meanwhile insistent that although the replay would add to his side's growing fixture backlog, it would not affect their build-up to next week's Champions' Cup semi-final.
He declared: "By the time we go to Turin, we'll be champing at the bit - we'll be eating people!
"Never underestimate the British endurance. Juventus will have to run a million miles to beat us."
The bonus for Arsenal is that Emmanuel Petit will be free from suspension for the replay.
MANCHESTER UNITED: Schmeichel, G. Neville, Irwin (P. Neville 84), Stam, Johnsen, Beckham, Butt, Cole (Scholes 112), Keane, Yorke, Giggs (Solskjaer 98). Subs Not Used: Van Der Gouw, Blomqvist. Booked: G. Neville, Irwin.
ARSENAL: Seaman, Dixon, Winterburn, Vieira, Adams, Vivas, Anelka (Kanu 98), Bergkamp, Overmars (Ljungberg 90), Keown, Parlour. Subs Not Used: Bould, Grimandi, Lukic. Sent Off: Vivas (95). Booked: Vivas, Parlour.
Referee: D Elleray (Harrow-on-the-Hill).
