Bill Edgar's tactical analysis

Had they not been sighted side-by-side on the Manchester United bench, it would have been hard to believe that Sir Alex Ferguson and Carlos Queiroz had attended the same match. Terrible abuse from people two or three feet away, Sir Alex raged, while Queiroz commended his hosts on the atmosphere in the stadium. Arsenal equalised only by pumping long balls into the box, the manager snapped. We should congratulate the players of both teams, it was a great day for football, his coach said with a smile. The referee favoured Arsenal, Sir Alex howled. It was fantastic to see this game, his contrary sounding-board concluded.

Arsenal’s injury-time goal must have been hard to take, particularly when on previous occasions United goalkeepers such as Roy Carroll have been allowed to operate with imaginary goallines a good yard behind the posts, but William Gallas levelled the game fair and square and justice was done with a point apiece. Arsenal had the best of the play, United the best of the chances.

Queiroz was right because the players of both teams deserved credit for barely taking a backward step after half-time; Ferguson was wrong, because Howard Webb, the referee, did Arsenal no favours and, if anything, the home team got a raw deal. Ferguson thought he saw a foul on Louis Saha in the build-up to Arsenal’s second goal, but more striking was the push on Alexander Hleb by Wes Brown that aided United’s first. A penalty-area tug committed by Nemanja Vidic on Hleb was also waved away. Despite this, the draw was the right result.

Ferguson’s reaction also confirms that despite the bravado emanating from Old Trafford, he knows Arsenal present a serious threat to United’s supremacy this season. While the past seven days have brought the league leaders two points from a possible six – Arsène Wenger was hoping for four – the nature of the results, never in front against Liverpool and United yet showing the character to level late on, is indeed the form of potential champions. “This side has something you do not see at first look,” Wenger, speaking of a resilience that is no longer disputed, said. Well, almost.

What is wrong with this picture? Peter Schmeichel, Tim Flowers, Mark Bosnich, David Seaman, Fabien Barthez, Jens Lehmann, Petr Cech, Edwin van der Sar, Manuel Almunia. If Wenger is to go the rest of the season with his present goalkeeper, he must buck a top-flight trend that winner’s medals go to experienced internationals and men at the peak of their craft.

Barthez will be remembered for the odd calamity but also for his World Cup victory; Lehmann is highly strung but has successfully deposed Oliver Kahn as Germany’s No 1; Flowers was a solid citizen and unfortunate to have his career run parallel to another pair of safe hands in Seaman; even Bosnich was briefly at the top of the tree at the time of his move to United. As for the rest, Schmeichel, Seaman, Van der Sar and Cech have enjoyed spells when unofficially tagged “the best in the world”.

And then there is Almunia, or Manuel as he will for ever be known, were he to prove as accident prone as his namesake from a chaotically-run Torquay hotel. In by default after Lehmann’s unhappy start to the season and now riding the coat-tails of this impressive young Arsenal team when tested by United after the first equaliser, he was the only member of Wenger’s team who did not pass the psychological examination, appearing skittish and flustered under pressure.

He was certainly culpable for the second goal, having already twice left his line in a misguided attempt to see off a United attacking threat from wide. When he did it a third time, Patrice Evra’s wit and Cristiano Ronaldo’s finishing made him pay. His excitability seemed to coincide with a period of the game when one mistake was likely to determine the outcome; his decision-making went to hell and that is not a good sign.

Even the greatest goalkeepers are vulnerable to the pressure of the big occasion and last season’s champion, Van der Sar, may have retained his place in this campaign only because of an injury to Ben Foster, his deputy, but Almunia is different. He does not have the same store of experience to draw on when times get tough. He is not a full international and has little significant history at club level.

His greatest concentration of appearances came with Osasuna’s B team between the ages of 20 and 22 (he is now 30) and since then he is yet to reach the milestone of 50 league appearances with any club, even Sabadell and Eibar, from Spain’s second division. Picked up from humble Albacete Balompié in 2004, his three years at Arsenal have yielded 20 league games. This is his longest run in the team as Wenger makes a point to Lehmann, but he is hardly the man to be trusted holding Arsenal’s title chances when his rivals at United, Liverpool and Chelsea can call on a trio of goalkeepers in Van der Sar, José Manuel Reina and Cech with 181 international appearances between them.

“I have three goalkeepers, including Lukasz Fabianski,” Wenger said, “but until now, Almunia has done extremely well for ten games and I didn’t want to disturb the side. I believe in sticking with one goalkeeper, but at the same time you cannot tell him: ‘No matter how many mistakes you make, you’ll always be my man.’ But you have to give him at least two games, so Lehmann does not come back into consideration yet, even though Manuel will feel he made a mistake for their second goal, because he left his area but did not get the ball.”

If Wenger’s policy is to allow two strikes - and that seems consistent as Lehmann was dropped after mistakes against Fulham and Blackburn Rovers – then Saturday was strike one for Almunia. Another poor game and the search for a steadying influence behind the defence resumes and if Lehmann and Almunia have been tried and failed, that leaves only Fabianski, the 22-year-old whose sole first-team action has come via the Carling Cup.

The answer could lie in the January transfer window, but with ten Barclays Premier League games between now and then, Wenger will be hoping this is the last “ Que?” of Manuel’s season. It takes a top-end goalkeeper to win the league: what a pity if such a perfect proposition was to founder on football’s equivalent of the bleeding obvious.

How they rated

Arsenal 2 Fàbregas 48, Gallas 90

4-4-1-1 M Almunia 4 B Sagna 6 K Touré 7 W Gallas 8 G Clichy 5 E Eboué 6 F Fàbregas Y 7 M Flamini 6 T Rosicky 8 A Hleb 7 E Adebayor 8 Substitutes: T Walcott (for Eboué, 73min), Gilberto Silva (for Flamini, 80), Eduardo da Silva (for Rosicky, 80) Not used: J Lehmann, L Diarra Next: Reading (a)

Manchester United 2 Gallas 45 (og), Ronaldo 82

4-3-3 E van der Sar 6 W Brown 7 R Ferdinand 7 N Vidic 7 P Evra Y 8 O Hargreaves Y 5 Anderson 8 R Giggs 7 C Ronaldo 7 C Tévez 6 W Rooney 7 Substitutes: J O’Shea 5 (for Brown, 70), M Carrick (for Anderson, 75), L Saha (for Tévez, 75) Not used: Nani, T Kuszczak Next: Blackburn Rovers (h)

Referee H Webb

Attendance 60,161