Both are now tied on 27 points at the top of the league, the London club top courtesy of goals scored. "We were tested character-wise twice and we came through it twice, " said Arsene Wenger. "I felt we played a little bit with the handbrake in the firsthalf and more freely in the second. Every mistake you make at this level is deadly and twice United took advantage."

Alex Ferguson came to a similarly fair-minded conclusion of the day's events. "At 21 up we really should have held on for the win but overall it's a fair enough result.

We contained them well in the first half but gaps were always going to open up after the break."

Up until that late flurry of incidents, however, there wasn't much to get excited about.

After a lively opening 10 minutes, where the ball whizzed around like a pinball machine, United crammed the midfield with as many players as they could muster and put a halt to Arsenal's neat passing triangles. It was clever stuff from Ferguson, selecting a team with such attacking talents as Carlos Tevez, Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs and Cristiano Ronaldo but asking at least three of them to hunt like wild dogs whenever Arsenal had possession.

That work ethic succeeded in disrupting Arsenal's football. The home side's best effort on goal came 10 minutes before half-time when William Gallas nodded a nearpost header off the shins of Edwin van der Sar. Beyond that, however, the visitors had the better chances. Tevez almost tucked away Giggs' cross to the near post, six minutes later the Welshman should have done better from Ronaldo's ball across the sixyard box but bang on 45 minutes, neither miss seemed to matter. Wes Brown found the ever menacing Ronaldo wideright, level with Arsenal penalty area and the winger slid a teasing cross towards the near post. Rooney stole half a yard on Gallas and although the striker didn't make perfect contact, his effort deflected off the Arsenal defender and past Manuel Almunia.

Ferguson must have been bouncing around like a kid on Christmas Eve at halftime, particularly because he was clearly winning the tactical battle against Wenger, his greatest rival. The pair have had a tumultuous relationship down the years, one that reached a nasty peak after the volatile set of Old Trafford clashes between the sides in 2003 and 2004 when the Metropolitan Police were forced to step in to ask both sets of verbally jousting managers to bury the hatchet, and preferably not in each other. Both men did the sensible thing and held their whist for a while but with Jose Mourinho now off in some unknown destination, the great adversaries had nothing to distract them. And that's exactly why you could understand Ferguson's halftime delight.

Why then, the knight of the realm must be wondering this morning, having closed Arsenal down with vigour for 45 minutes, did United's players forget to do it at the start of the second-half? The clock hard barely ticked past its 47th minute when Emmanuel Eboue, with all the time in the world, dinked the ball into the penalty area towards Emmanuel Adebayor. Van der Sar came out to stop the striker getting a clean hit on it but Bacary Sagna prodded the ball across the box and Cesc Fabergas passed the ball into the net.

All level, the game tightened once more and it looked to be heading towards a 1-1 draw until those enthralling final eight minutes. Evra ran onto Louis Saha's clever pass and teed up Ronaldo for the simplest of tap-ins from sixyards out. It was a superbly constructed goal, much unlike Arsenal's unexpected late, late equaliser.

A sweet Gael Clichy cross from the left bounced across the United penalty area, allowing substitute Theo Walcott a clear shot on goal. The teenager, however, screwed his effort back across the sixyard box towards his captain Gallas. The Arsenal centrehalf managed to catch the ball cleanly and even though Van der Sar pushed his effort away from goal, the eagleeyed linesman on the far side correctly judged that the ball had already crossed the line.

Cue bedlam at the Emirates and a fair result that will keep both Ferguson and Wenger happy.

For now.