15. That’s the number of seconds for which the camera lingered its focus on Ruud van Nistelrooy, as the Manchester United and Arsenal players walked out of the tunnel. The Dutch forward had a smile on his face, wheeling out a young United kid as they moved towards the pitch at Old Trafford. Ruud being the centre of the camera’s attention was no coincidence, nor was it unexpected.
It’s October 2004. Team America: World Police and Shark Tale are in cinemas. The Boston Red Sox are about to win a 6th World Series. And Americans are about to give George Bush another four years in office. In the Premier League, Andy Johnson is the current Player of the Month. Emirates sponsors a team in West London, not North. And Arsenal haven’t lost in over a year. The Gunners stepped onto the turf at the Theatre of Dreams having fulfilled the supposedly foolhardy statement made by their manager two years earlier.
“It’s not impossible to go through the season unbeaten and I can’t see why it’s shocking to say that”, Arsene Wenger said in 2002. “Every manager thinks that but they don’t say it because they’re scared it would be ridiculous”. Arsenal would beat Bolton on the day Wenger made the statement, but three weeks later; ridiculous. The Gunners squandered a lead at Everton, and lost, thanks to a belter from a 16-year-old Wayne Rooney (more on him later), and if the result was a shock, Arsenal losing a game and not being unbeaten was of no surprise to anyone. 6 league defeats later that season, and the Gunners – having won the league in 2002 – would relinquish the title to United, as the flame of rivalry between the pair continued to burn.
But there would be something peculiar about Defeat Number 6. Or, rather, following Defeat Number 6. After Leeds United’s Mark Viduka broke through Arsenal’s defence for a winning goal in May 2003 (which sealed the league title for Man United that season), Wenger’s side wouldn’t taste defeat again in the league for nearly 18 months. This included a title-winning 2003/04 season, where the record was: 38 played, 26 won, 12 drawn, none lost. “Somebody threw me a T-shirt after the trophy was presented which read ‘Comical Wenger says we can go the whole season unbeaten.’ I was just a season too early!”, Wenger said in May 2004. Overall, they went into the game at Old Trafford in October 2004 unbeaten in 49 games. Yet, this run could easily have ended after seven, and no sort of history would have been made, and all of this would have been a footnote in Hall of Premier League memories.
The Battle of Old Trafford
A year and 33 days before The Battle of the Buffet – that was what the 2004 game would be called – there was The Battle of Old Trafford. It was the sixth game of the 2003/04 season, and a spiky encounter which saw Patrick Vieira sent off for Arsenal would end with United receiving a last-minute penalty. But Van Nistelrooy’s effort thundered off the crossbar, leading to a goalless draw and a spate of fisticuffs right after the final whistle, starting with Martin Keown going at the now-Leicester manager. “They got away with murder”, United manager Sir Alex Ferguson would say a year later. “What the Arsenal players did was the worst I have witnessed in sport”. Wenger had a retort. “Maybe it would be better if you had us put up against a wall and shot us all. I hope that he will calm down”.
That sliding doors moment remains significant till this day, as Arsenal went on to achieve a feat never seen before in Premier League history, or since. United would finish third in 2004, 15 points behind Arsenal, but Fergie wasn’t exactly prepared to accept any kind of power shift towards the Londoners. “Arsenal wasn’t championship form because 12 draws is just too many”, the Scot said before the 2004/05 season began. “Does Arsenal’s achievement make them the best team in England ever? They only won one trophy, and we’ve done nothing in the last 10 years, have we?... Remaining undefeated was quite incredible really, but they didn’t match our points total of 91 when we won the title in 2000 and only drew seven games”.
If Fergie was keen to state that the balance of power hadn’t shifted in the Premier League, then letting Arsenal leave with their unbeaten run intact in ’04 was off the table. The Gunners started the 2004/05 season with eight wins in nine games – only a late goal by Bolton’s Henrik Pedersen prevented nine out of nine – and were five points clear at the top. United, meanwhile, had 11 points less than the leaders, had won only three games in the league, and came into the Arsenal encounter on the back of successive draws against Birmingham and Middlesbrough. So, any indicator that they were still the top of the food chain in the country had to come in the form of them putting an end to that invincible run. “We need to show Arsenal who’s in charge, basically”, said a United fan outside on the day of the game. “They’re unbeaten, not unbeatable”, uttered another.
The Game
By then, Man United-Arsenal games were known for as much football as they were for crunch moments. For bite as much as beauty, and flair and fire in equal measure. “What Man United want is a battle….they’ll mix it up”, an Arsenal fan said on match day. And the United players didn’t exactly hide that. “It was a build-up of 12 months because the happenings in the 2003 game were totally out of order… It wasn’t war, but it was like two heavyweights clashing in the ring”, said Phil Neville, “All week Arsenal had been banging on about how great it would be to make it to 50 games unbeaten at Old Trafford”, Wayne Rooney said. “Big mistake. They fired us up. 50 games unbeaten? No way. Not at our place”, continued the Englishman, who was celebrating his 19th birthday on the day of the game.
And if there was any doubt over the ferocity of the clash, it was laid to rest just 37 seconds after kick-off, when Gunners left-back Ashley Cole left a cruncher on Cristiano Ronaldo. Cole would receive one from Rooney in the sixth minute, before Lauren went in on Ryan Giggs in the 11th. Three minutes later, Edu left his mark on Ruud van Nistelrooy. Three minutes after that, Rooney would be on the receiving end, from Patrick Vieira, who’d also go in on Ronaldo before the half-hour mark, and on Giggs 15 minutes before the end of the game “It was a level of aggression you would not see in a Premier League game in 2024”, wrote Ahmed Walid for The Athletic, doing a 20-year retrospective on the game earlier this October. A telling point in this game is that while some of the fouls were not so cynical or malicious, there were no shirt tugs, time-wasting shenanigans, or even mild dissent. It was all crunchy and gritty tackles, a lot of 50-50s, and a game where every player was keen to signal their intent and presence to the opposition. Arsenal ended that game with 24 fouls, only four less than United, but it was the hosts who were notable for targeting one player.
“In all my sporting life, I have never received so many kicks as I did in Manchester. It was the hardest match I have played”. This was the post-match comment from Gunners winger Jose Antonio Reyes, who was very much on the receiving end of the brunt of the tackles. Phil Neville was in the side as replacement for an unavailable Roy Keane, repeating a feat he’d performed when both sides met in December 2002. But this time, he had to perform it in a different way. “We got into Reyes, as well as (Thierry) Henry and (Robert) Pires”, said United’s Number 3 afterwards.
But it was largely Reyes, who was on the end of a tackle for the first time in the game on 15 minutes, from Phil. Eight minutes later, it was Phil’s brother Gary Neville who left his mark on the Spaniard, then in the 34th minute both Neville brothers went in on him. Then Minute 35, Gary Neville gets booked for another cruncher on Reyes. Minute 36, Reyes gets one from Rooney. Minute 37, Phil Neville gets booked for going at Reyes (ironically enough, the only red card between games involving both teams that season was in the FA Cup final, received by Reyes). By then, the tackles had come in thick and fast. Cole had retaliated on Rooney (and also gotten booked), Phil Neville had slid in at Dennis Bergkamp, Van Nistelrooy had gone in at Lauren, Gabriel Heinze left one on Edu, and then on 44 minutes, Heinze himself would get Henry’s knee to the back of his head.
Mike Riley has remained subject of conversation regarding this game since 2004
But the first main flashpoint was in the 18th minute, when Freddie Ljungberg broke through on goal for Arsenal, and went down after tussling with Rio Ferdinand, United’s skipper on the day, and, most importantly, the last defender in that encounter. No foul, said referee Mike Riley, who before the game had been reached out to by the Greater Manchester Police who were on alert for any friction between both sets of players and fans. Riley has remained subject of conversation for this game since, especially from Arsenal fans, and his decision to award nothing for the Ferdinand-Ljungberg tussle had Wenger at fourth official Phil Dowd’s ear.
The second flashpoint was 15 minutes later, when a Van Nistelrooy stamp attempted to reshape Cole’s knee. Again, nothing doing, said Riley, and all Arsenal got was a throw-in. “Riley decided the game, like we know he can do at Old Trafford”, said an incandescent Wenger post-match, who also had a go at Van Nistelrooy. “He can only cheat people who don’t know him”. The game itself was more fouls than flair, and the only real chance of the first half was Henry testing Roy Carroll in the United goal late in the half.
The ferocious and rather ungentlemanly display that met the first half mellowed after the break, and Arsenal found a foothold in the game, in terms of control, but chances still wouldn’t come. The Gunners dominated possession – at some point it was 86% to 14% in favour of the visitors – but always seemed one pass off from creating an opening. Meanwhile United were direct, and fast-paced, if a little impatient.
That directness and hurriedness would pay off in the 71st minute. Rio Ferdinand jabbed a pass through to the Arsenal defensive third. It was a ball to no one in particular, but the pace caught Kolo Toure unaware and uncertain. Then came more hesitation with Sol Campbell and Patrick Vieira, allowing Rooney room to eventually get into the box. Third flashpoint; Campbell sticks out a leg as Rooney tries to go past, but there’s no contact. The Gunners’ centre-back already turned his ire towards the teenage forward, berating him for his ‘dive’, before noticing that Riley had blown for a penalty. The roar of the home crowd didn’t exactly match the sarcastic smile on Wenger’s face.
So, one year, 1 month, and three days after missing that penalty, up stepped Van Nistelrooy again. “The moment he pointed to give the penalty, I was like ‘oh my God, here we go’”, the Dutchman told MUTV, who stood with the ball, near-motionless as the players around him descended on the referee. “I was never not gonna take it. I mean, this was like the moment. I had to do it, and to show what I was about”. It seemed a touch absurd to talk about a penalty as a way of proving yourself, especially for a forward who’d scored 110 goals in the previous three seasons, but such was the mark that was left by the 2003 game that this felt like everything. And when he rolled the pen past Jens Lehmann, his knee slide was as much celebration as it was catharsis, his bellows of ‘come on’ part-euphoria, part-exorcism.
Arsenal’s run was on the line, and now they absolutely had to find answer, but it still wouldn’t come off for them in the attacking sense. They were more notable for fouls of frustration – Vieira on Ryan Giggs, Edu on Paul Scholes, Cole on Ronaldo, which looked more of a penalty than the one that was given – than chance creation – the only chance was Cole shooting over in the United box, after Henry drifted wide to create space in attack. Crosses became a feature for the Gunners, unsuccessfully, and the game started hinting at room for United to counter.
First Van Nistelrooy found room to break, but a potential 2v1 was quelled by a tackle from Lauren. Then Ryan Giggs found space to counter, and had to be denied by Lehmann. And then in the second minute of added time, there was a 3v2; United substitutes Louis Saha and Alan Smith would combine, before the latter found Rooney, and the birthday boy would do it to Arsenal again. “Arsenal are blown out for 49” yelled commentator Jon Champion. "Arsenal are beaten now" was MUFC official commentator Steve Bower's line. "(United) have left Arsenal with a feeling that some of the players today had never before experienced, that of a Premiership defeat" said Sky Sports' Martin Tyler. At full-time, Fergie did a rare pumping up of the fists at the Old Trafford faithful as he marched into the dressing room, indicating how much this meant.
‘War and Pizza’
But the final whistle wasn’t quite the end, as the drama went on into the tunnel. “Ruud van Nistelrooy came in to the dressing room and complained that Wenger had been giving him stick as he left the pitch”, said Fergie. “Right away I rushed out to say to Arsene ‘you leave my players alone… you should control your players’, I told him. He was livid. His fists were clenched”.
There were reports of tussles between players and coaching staff, soup being thrown, and famously, pizza being launched from the Arsenal camp. “By the time we were walking down the extendable plastic tunnel everyone was having a go at each other”. Ashley Cole would explain after. “There were shouts of ‘you cheats’… I heard the boss (Wenger) hammering Ferguson, incandescent French”.
“I was in the dressing room eating the pizza and I see that everyone outside the dressing room in that tunnel, something was going on, it was kicking off”, Cesc Fabregas told Arsenal Insider years later. “By the time I go out, I see everyone just getting into each other. It was like a little fight but it got bigger and bigger”, the Spaniard continued. “I was very small, very tiny, I didn’t really know what to do, but I wanted to bring something to the table to defend my teammates and that’s what I did”. Fabregas also admitted that he didn’t know who the pizza had hit, while Fergie mentioned not knowing who threw the edible projectile at him.
Cesc Fabregas years later admitted to throwing the pizza which hit Fergie
“Sir Alex came into the dressing room with food on his blazer”, said Gary Neville. “I don’t think the pizza was directed at Sir Alex. The tunnel was only a metre or so wide, so if you have 22 players in a small tunnel you are bound to hit someone”. It was all a mess, but that didn’t stop a certain Irishman from having FOMO, maybe it spurred it. “I was gutted I missed the game, and all the fighting that went on in the tunnel afterwards”, said Roy Keane, who would get to do some tunnel fighting with Vieira when they met in the return fixture in in February 2005. The events in the tunnel would give the game titles such as The Battle of the Buffet, and Pizzagate, while the Daily Mail used the lines ‘War and Pizza’ post-match.
The Aftermath
Jose Mourinho's arrival at Chelsea would reshape the balance of power and rivalries in the Premier League
“That day created a division between us, without doubt, and that rift extended to Pat Rice (Wenger’s assistant), who stopped coming in for a drink after games”, Fergie would write in his autobiography. “The wound was not fully healed until the Champions League semi-final in 2009, when Arsene invited into his room after the game and congratulated us”. It was probably the apex, or at least, biggest boiling point of the Arsenal-United-Fergie-Wenger rivalry, but strangely enough, it was also the beginning of the end.
That’s because, among other things, that result at Old Trafford cut Arsenal’s gap at the top of the table to two points, above Chelsea, managed by one Jose Mourinho, who was in his first season at Stamford Bridge. The Blues had gotten a new owner in 2003, and had started to make a statement in the league, and in the previous season finished second, 11 points off Arsenal. But they’d started this season incredibly well, with a mean defence that had only let in two goals in nine games. And when the Gunners could only draw three of their next four league games – against Southampton, Crystal Palace, and West Brome (three of the eventual bottom four teams) – Chelsea pulled clear and never looked back, with just one defeat and 15 goals conceded all season, and Wenger’s side finished 12 points off the eventual champions.
United meanwhile, didn’t exactly gather immediate steam from the result, as they failed to score in their next two league games, which included a defeat at Portsmouth. They did go 20 league games unbeaten between the start of November and early April, but won only three of their final eight games, to finish third again, and 18 points off Chelsea. For a brief period, United had to be content to play more of a role of spoilers than top dog. Prior to the October 2004 game, they’d ended any Arsenal hopes of a treble in the 2003/04 season by beating them in the FA Cup semi-final in April, and a year and two months after smashing Arsenal’s 49-game unbeaten in the league, they put paid to Chelsea’s 40-game unbeaten run in November 2005.
Fergie won a 13th league title before retiring in 2013
But soon, the rivalry at the top in the Premier League became between Fergie and Mourinho, though it was briefer and less pizza-y. United would win five league titles before Fergie called it a career, including another run of three on the bounce, but they haven’t picked up the domestic leading crown since 2013. Arsenal, meanwhile, went from invincible to settling for fourth place in 18 month. "We knew that the good times were over; that unique moment, the time without fear, had passed and we knew it would be hard to recapture that state of grace", wrote Wenger in his 2021 autobiography. But if you mentioned in May or even October 2004 that they wouldn’t win a league title since, it’d be a laughable statement. They haven’t won a league title since.
Both teams have had significant changes in fortune since that meeting 2004, and as they meet again in December 2024, it’s a different tale – Arsenal are fighting to remain in the title race, while United just want to regain a solid footing under new manager Ruben Amorim, and the rivalry between the pair has certainly lost a lot of the early 2000's steam, to the surprise of none.
But on October 2004, when the red of Manchester and the red of London played at Old Trafford, they played with opposing missions. United’s was to disrupt and halt Arsenal, whether through kicks, falls, niggles, or whichever way could work. A mission that they ruffled, riled, and roared their way to accomplishing.
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