Quote Originally Posted by Burney View Post
The most lenient interpretation I can make is that it was simply the perfect storm moment when all the pre-existing factors like the intrinsic pro-United/anti-Arsenal bias by Sky, referees and the media; Old Trafford; Ferguson's influence, etc, etc came together to create an absolute travesty of a game. Somehow it was felt that Arsenal were due their comeuppance by whatever means and that United were the team to do it. And afterwards, everyone went along with that story because to do otherwise would've involved admitting that those pre-existing factors did actually exist.
I think the biggest factor in that game was the game the season before- the Battle of Old Trafford. We lost the PR war over that and I think, without question, there was a feeling that we deserved whatever happened to us next time.

Of course, the 'Battle of Old Trafford' was itself instigated by two awful refereeing decisions beginning with an outrageous piece of cheating from Van Nistelrooy. I can remember other football fans saying they cheered when KEown lumped him. He was almost universally despised as a cheat