Man Utd. 4 - 0 Arsenal

Forced to play a relatively weakened side, Arsene Wenger watched as his team was eliminated from a cup competition in a four goal loss to a hated rival for the second time this season. Today’s loss was perpetrated by a rampant Manchester United, who took advantage of a seemingly dis-interested Arsenal to cruise to a 4-0 5th Round FA Cup victory at Old Trafford earlier this afternoon. With the Champions League match against AC Milan taking place this Wednesday, Wenger decided to rest the human goal machine Emmanuel Adebayor as well as Mathieu Flamini. Returning to the side were Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Eboue, their first action for the Gunners since the African Cup of Nations.

Wayne “Shrek” Rooney opened the scoring for Man U after only sixteen minutes, and Darren Fletcher added the first of his two goals just four minutes later. Nani scored the third Man U goal six minutes before the break and that was pretty much that. Really, in all honesty, Arsenal never looked like they had any chance of getting something out of the match. Whatever minute chance they did have evaporated when Emmanuel Eboue left his foot in during a tackle on Patrice Evra which earned the Ivorian a straight red card and an automatic three match ban. Down to ten men for the bulk of the second half, you actually have to give the Gunners a bit of credit for not getting completely annihilated. The match did get a big chippy as Man U began to hot dog a bit, which got under the skin of guys like William Gallas in particular.

Despite post-match arguments to the contrary, one has to think that the team took their queues from the Manager. The FA Cup isn’t a priority for him this year, and so the team played more with an eye towards not getting hurt than actually competing. At least that’s what it looked like from my couch.

So, it’s AC Milan at home on Wednesday as we get back to Champions League action. The match is being broadcast live here in the States on ESPN2, with kickoff at 2:45 PM.