Arsene Wenger's men are eight points clear of the Premier League champions ahead of their trip to Old Trafford, with a potential power shift setting the stage for a titanic battle

It has been rather too easy to forget just how significant the
rivalry between Manchester United and Arsenal was to English
football as we moved from old millennium to new.

And significant, really, is the only word for it. From 1997 to
2004, nobody broke the Sir Alex Ferguson/Arsene Wenger-led
duopoly that dominated the Premier League title race. Nobody,
in real terms, even came close.

"If you look at our history prior to Jose Mourinho's arrival at
Chelsea, there was no consistent threat to our dominance
outside of Arsenal," wrote Ferguson in his recent
autobiography. Alongside the Portuguese, Wenger is the only
other manager afforded a chapter to himself in the book.

Yet it was more than just two great teams under two great
managers playing two distinctive and nonetheless still brilliant styles of football. It mattered. We cared because, so clearly, they did.

From only six months into Wenger's tenure in north London, when Ferguson described the Frenchman as a "novice" to, well, just over a fortnight ago and the release of the former United boss's book, in which he criticises, amongst other things, the Arsenal man's ability to produce his own players, it was a rivalry that brought the best and, more enthrallingly, the worst out of both clubs.

The soap opera-style, up-and-at-'em nadir came at Old Trafford 10 years ago, in a game that Sky's Martin Tyler described at the time as "for 75 minutes a football match and then it became a feud". Or, for the headline writers ever since: The Battle of Old Trafford.

It will forever be weaved into the English football tapestry.
Martin Keown, arms outstretched and neck veins on the
precipice of popping, jumping at and onto Ruud van Nistelrooy after the Dutchman missed a penalty that was to be the last kick of a 0-0 draw.

And then all hell broke loose. Gary Neville pushed Keown,
Lauren pushed Ryan Giggs, Cristiano Ronaldo pushed Lauren and repeat ad infinitum. It was a cartoon dust cloud short of a full-on brawl and, save for the FA disciplinary panel, who fined Arsenal and number of players from both sides upwards of £275,000, we loved it. Again, we cared.

Eight months later and Arsenal were The Invincibles. The
unbeaten Premier League champions. Wenger's third and, at
time of writing, last league title.
In the following season of 2004-05, United stopped the
Gunners from making it 50 games unbeaten in the league, at
the cost of Ferguson's suit, which was ruined by a slice of
Hawaiian pizza flung by a teenage Cesc Fabregas during
another post-match brawl in an image so brilliant that you are
almost glad that it never found its way onto the TV cameras.

The game at Highbury that season was also won by United
after Roy Keane – the 5ft 10in Roy Keane – challenged Patrick
Vieira (6ft 4in) to pick on someone his own size in the tunnel
ahead of the match, after the Frenchman allegedly provoked
Gary Neville.

But by then had come the shift - or Mourinho, as he is
otherwise known. His Chelsea side embarrassed the warring
pair from north London and Manchester and had their first title
in 50 years wrapped up by April. And as the Keanes, Keowns
and Vieiras quietly drifted away, the venom soon followed.

The old enemies have not ever really been the same since.
Wenger's side, consigned to the relative tundra of fourth and
occasionally third place since 2005, became by and large
become an afterthought for a United side preoccupied by the
new-monied Chelsea and Manchester City. Over the last five
years, Arsenal have finished on average 15 points behind the
club whom, for the best part of a decade, they dominated
alongside and battled against.

It all became a bit ... nice. Wenger or his then-assistant, Pat
Rice, returned to Ferguson's office after matches between the
two for wine and a chat and the Scot spoke of his sympathy
for his opposite number after United systematically blew the
Gunners to pieces in an 8-2 battering at Old Trafford in 2011.
Even United's signing of Robin van Persie – surely the most
significant transfer between two English clubs in over a
decade- was met amicably by an Arsenal outfit resigned to the
fact that they had indeed fallen behind.

But they are back. Unquestionably so. A win at Old Trafford for
Wenger's side on Sunday would see them move 11 points clear
of their hosts after as many games. It would not only be
unprecedented, it is almost unthinkable. Yet a win away to
Borussia Dortmund on Wednesday and the five-point gap at
the top of the table upon which Arsenal are currently sat,
coupled with the fact that David Moyes has not yet beaten a
team currently placed higher than 13th in the league, give the
game an unusual air of role reversal. United are in dangerous
territory of being left behind.

And so once more to that word, 'significant', and to a fixture
that had for too long felt anything but. Manchester United v
Arsenal is now again on top billing. The Battle of Old Trafford
is back.