Revitalised Arsenal And Thrilling United In "Match Of The Decade"1 February 1958, 20:25 Over 63,000 were present to witness Manchester United's first visit to the capital this season, and those lucky souls were privileged to witness not only the champions at their best, but also to see Arsenal produce one of their finest displays of determination and character since the days of Herbert Chapman. All this and nine goals as well.
It is to be sincerely hoped that this absorbing match did not take too much out of United before their difficult match in Belgrade on Wednesday. If United are to prevail in Yugoslavia, much will depend on the form of the young Bobby Charlton, who was superb here today, improving all the time as he continues his progress from the one-sided, rather limited midfielder that he was last season into the brilliant inside-forward who played at Highbury. United have no patience with the modern trend of moving one, two or even three defenders back to cover the defence, and they deserve credit for keeping their attacking tradition intact; in fact, at times in this match their wing-halves joined in with the attackers to make six or even seven forwards. Of course, this occasionally leaves gaps in the defence, and it seemed early on that Arsenal might take advantage of this; in the opening stages Mark Jones and even Harry Gregg were called upon to intervene at the last moment to deny Arsenal’s forwards. But after ten minutes, United were first on the score sheet, as Dennis Viollet dribbled through the Arsenal defence before picking out Kenny Morgans; his cut-back found Duncan Edwards to open the scoring. Then Albert Scanlon became the scourge of the Londoners; first he ran at great pace with the ball, and when he crossed it hard and low Charlton was on hand to finish cleanly. Ten minutes later it was Scanlon again who caused the damage, when another low cross was knocked back across goal by Morgans and Charlton was there again to claim United’s third. At half-time Groves and Tapscott swapped positions in the Arsenal forward line, and it seemed to have the desired effect. Suddenly Jones was having plenty of trouble in the United midfield, and because Roger Byrne was not giving Jones much in the way of support, the Arsenal attacking play became much more threatening. All of a sudden, Arsenal clawed themselves back into the game with three goals in as many astonishing minutes. Firstly, Bowen delivered a long pass into Herd, who took his chance coolly to give Arsenal some hope; two minutes after that Nutt ran down the left, his cross found Groves’ head, and Bloomfield converted the knock-down. Arsenal sensed a chance to capitalise on United’s sudden self-doubt, and sure enough, a minute after the second, Nutt had repeated his left wing cross, this time finding Bloomfield directly; the header crept just inside the post. A lesser team than United might have crumbled completely at this point, but the Reds simply went up the other end and scored themselves. Scanlon went very wide on the left, and linked up with Charlton; Viollet was on hand to head home Charlton’s cross. United’s fifth came from a tremendous piece of improvisation from Tommy Taylor, who found himself running in towards the Arsenal goal along the goal-line. With few options available in the middle, he elected to shoot, catching out Kelsey by scoring from an almost impossible angle. Arsenal should have been done for by that fifth goal, but with fourteen minutes still left to play, Groves, who had run tirelessly in midfield all afternoon, set up Herd with a great chance. The Arsenal centre-forward, however, preferred to pass to Tapscott, who had managed to escape from Byrne’s attentions, and easily scored to make it 5-4. Fortunately for United, the scoring finished there, and they were able to return north with both points to prepare for another European jaunt. But their satisfaction at winning at Highbury will have been tempered by news of the leaders Wolves beating Leicester 5-1, and furthermore United will know that they need to produce a performance of at least equal skill and determination if they are to hold Red Star on Wednesday night. Arsenal: Kelsey; S. Charlton, Evans; Ward, Fotheringham, Bowen; Groves, Tapscott, Herd, Bloomfield, Nutt. Manchester United: Gregg; Foulkes, Byrne; Colman, Jones, Edwards; Morgans, Charlton, Taylor, Viollet, Scanlon.
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