It’s 402 years almost to the day since the last gunpowder plot was foiled. If the Gunners of Arsenal were hoping to do a "Guy Fawkes” and light the fuse to another explosive assault on football’s silverware in north London, I’m afraid they suffered the same fate.

I’d been reading all week how the much-vaunted Cesc Fabregas and Mathieu Flamini were going to take a stranglehold on midfield, how Aleksandr Hleb was going to taunt and skip around a bedazzled Manchester United defence, and how Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Eboue were going to storm through the gaps created by Arsenal’s Three Musketeers.

The Gunners were going to put the Champions in their place. They were about to proclaim to the nation that the Barclays Premier League trophy was as good as installed already in that shiny new Emirates cabinet.

'United haven’t won nine league titles in the past 15 years by listening to tales of how clubs intend to bring them down. It doesn’t work'


Of course it didn’t work out that way, unless you are prepared to accept that picking up a point a home is a sound reason for letting off fireworks. And it didn’t work out because Arsenal, like Chelsea before them, failed to acknowledge that the worst thing you can possibly do to Manchester United is to try and intimidate them.

United haven’t won nine league titles in the past 15 years by listening to tales of how clubs intend to bring them down. It doesn’t work.

Sure Arsenal lived up to their star billing, but never with a consistency that threatened to overwhelm the opposition. In the first half in particular Fabregas and Flamini, and to a lesser extent Hleb and Tomas Rosicky produced surging attacks that invariably foundered against a stubborn United defence.

United were still able to build their own momentum through Owen Hargreaves and Anderson in midfield and there were several nervy moments in the Arsenal back line when Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Carlos Tevez and the evergreen Ryan Giggs popped up around their 18-yard box.

Chances came and went for both teams, Giggs missing a far-post tap-in for United and Edwin Van Der Sar pulling off a superb save from a brilliant downward header by William Gallas from a curling Fabregas free-kick.

It was Gallas who got the final touch on a near-post Rooney flick that gave United the lead just before half-time, so it was perhaps fitting that Gallas should make amends, deep in injury time, when his close-range volley was clawed away by Van Der Sar but not before it had clearly crossed the line to salvage Arsenal’s point.

In between, Fabregas equalised Rooney’s opener for United and it looked as though the champions had pinched all three point late on when Ronaldo was able to walk the ball in after a penetrating left-wing run by Patrice Evra.

Overall, the game didn’t tell us much beyond what we already know. Arsenal will continue to dominate lesser mortals but it is against teams like United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Aston Villa and Blackburn that they will need to pick up crucial points, both at home and away,  if they hope to see their title ambitions fulfilled.

United, for their part, will probably feel the happier of the two antagonists, having gained a point away from home as opposed to Arsenal losing two points at home. United aren’t going to give up their title without one heck of a fight.

And the game was played in an uncommonly pleasant atmosphere of grudging goodwill and appreciation of each other's ability – a far cry from recent encounters most notable for the bruising battles between Patrick Vieira and Roy Keane and the manic behaviour of Martin Keown.