Wenger has a reputation of having extremely poor eyesight, and incapable of seeing what goes on in football matches. When one of his players are in the wrong, when his team score a goal that was offside, when Arsenal are awarded a penalty for diving, amazingly, he doesn’t see it. When Arsenal players spat their dummy out and threw pizza at Sir Alex Ferguson in the tunnel, after United convincingly ended their unbeaten run, Wenger was questioned about the incident. "I don't know about food throwing,” he said, “I did not see if something was thrown - you'll have to ask someone else because I don't know."

Arsene reinforced this stereotype with the comments he made after Arsenal’s victory at Old Trafford on Sunday. He talked of Arsenal’s “mental strength” and “great spirit”, and of a “good game” that had been played. This came as a surprise to me, considering I haven’t seen this fixture produce such a poor standard of football in years. In terms of boredom, the 0-0 at Highbury last season takes the award hands down, but Sunday’s game showed two teams who would have been beaten by pretty much any other team in the league with a performance like that.

Arsenal’s goal came from Ronaldo giving the ball to Fabregas quite generously. “Here, see what you can do with this.” It wasn’t the only time United players gave the ball away to create Arsenal’s chances. I struggle to see where Wenger’s idea of “mental strength” comes in to this game though. There aren’t many teams who wouldn’t be able to win the game 1-0 after that sloppy play from Ronaldo, and essentially, that is what made the difference between winning and drawing, not a rampage from the boys in yellow. In the closing minutes of the game, whilst 1-0, Lehmann made an incredible save from a Solskjaer shot, which had looked like a definite goal. Inexperienced Kuszczak, who was making his United debut, couldn’t pull of the same from a weaker Adebayor chance, who aside from the goal, had a poor game.

There are talks from the Arsenal camp of their title challenge being back on track, after picking up just 5 points from a maximum 12, with a goal difference of 0. And it does have to be said, after just a couple of months of playing, there’s no way the champions can be decided. United’s brilliant start to the season had left some papers predicting United to win their title back, but anyone with sense knows football is far less predictable than that. However, I doubt even the most devout Arsenal fan would have said in the pre-season that Arsenal were going to mount a serious title challenge, and I don’t see how that can change, just because they’ve picked up their first win of the season. The signings of Gallas and Rosicky in particular help boost Arsenal’s squad, however, they still have far too many weaknesses to be serious title contenders. If United had shown up, played brilliant football, and Arsenal still managed to walk away with 3 points, there would be at least a little credibility to their argument, in that they did have a team capable of playing brilliant football. However, this was not the case. United were shockingly bad, it was probably their worst performance since the 4-1 thrashing at the Riverside.

Chelsea are still the bookies favourite, and United lie in second. Despite Chelsea’s less than convincing performances so far, anyone would be mad to bet against a team with Cech, Terry, Lampard (although poor at the moment), Ballack, Makelele, Essien, Robben, Joe Cole, Shevchenko etc. going on to win the league. United in particular, and Liverpool, also have a squad capable of winning the league, and there wouldn’t be a huge surprise if either of them lifted the title, despite the comparable spending between them and Chelsea this season, and over the past few. Personally though, I can’t see Arsenal finishing anywhere other than 4th at best this season. This isn’t me writing them off for the long term, because as long as Wenger is there, spotting young talent, they have a future. But Fabregas does not have the presence of Vieira, and Adebayor cannot fill Bergkhamp’s shooting boots, whilst Van Persie, Walcott and Diaby still have a long way to go before they’re world beaters. The 1-0 victory was a good result for Arsenal, and on paper, makes them look more convincing, but Arsenal fans are going to find themselves very disappointed at the end of the season if they choose to buy in to Wenger’s talk of the title race still being on for their club, because quite frankly, they don’t stand a chance in hell.