One of the running themes of the English Premier League landscape from the late 1990s to the mid 2000s was the rivalry between Manchester United and Arsenal.
By the mid 90s, Liverpool’s dominance of the league had waned as United, under the direction of Sir Alex Ferguson had put together a formidable team which established absolute monopoly of the Premier League.
Somewhere in the capital, Arsene Wenger, a relatively unknown Frenchman, who arrived England following a stint in Japan was also putting together a potentially invincible team of his own. Consequently, a rivalry ensued, one which was laced with themes and sub-themes; a rivalry between managers, and a rivalry between players.
Without a doubt, the rivalry between the two skippers, Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira in the middle of the park constituted the biggest highlight in this rivalry between the two clubs; but there was also another raging war between two of the Premier League’s finest finishers, Dutchman, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Arsenal’s talismanic Frenchman, Thierry Henry.
Ruud van Nistelrooy spent five years at United between 2001-2006, and within those five years the two strikers would go toe to toe for the golden boot each and every single season, both obsessed with beating his counterpart for the coveted prize.
More obsessed in this rivalry perhaps was the Manchester United striker, whose goalscoring exploits did not seem to give him optimum satisfaction if his counterpart in North London had done better numbers for the day. Nistelrooy became obsessed with outscoring Henry to the point of sulking whenever the Frenchman outdid him.
‘He was just a ruthless, ruthless goalscorer. He lived for scoring goals,’ recalled Van Nistelrooy’s former team-mate Paul Scholes recently. ‘Whenever he did or didn’t score, the first thing he would do when we got on the team bus after the game was see if Thierry Henry had scored.
‘If Henry had scored, he wouldn’t talk to anybody for the full trip home because he was so engrossed in being the leading goalscorer. Not just at United but in the league, in the world, everywhere.’
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‘He used to come in the changing room after a game, trust me, we’re trying to win the league, we’ve beaten someone 3-1 or 4-1, he’s scored one goal, he’ll come in and look up to the TV [shake his head] and go “oh”,’ says Ferdinand.
‘We’d ask Ruud what was wrong and he would reply “nothing, nothing”. Then someone will go, “Thierry has scored two today, Ruud has only scored one, so he’s a goal behind now”. He’s sitting there devastated, and you can see it.
‘I used to think this guy is mad, we just won 3-1, he’s scored a banger, set someone up as well, and he’s disappointed!’
To appreciate the enmity between United and Arsenal at that time, consider this: these two rivals shared the Premier League title for no fewer than nine years in a row between 1996 and 2004 before Jose Mourinho’s arrival at Chelsea ended the duopoly.
Henry signed for Arsenal in the summer of 1999 after United had overcome the Londoners in a titanic title race and that iconic FA Cup semi-final to win the Treble. In eight years with the Gunners, Henry won the Premier League twice and two FA Cups.
Van Nistelrooy joined United in 2001 and during five years at Old Trafford he lifted one title, the FA Cup and League Cup.
Significantly, however, Henry won the Golden Boot in four of those five seasons they went head to head, fuelling the Dutchman’s insecurity and feelings of one-upmanship.
Van Nistelrooy scored 150 goals in all competitions and 95 in the Premier League. Henry hit 165 and 130 in the Premier League on the way to becoming Arsenal’s all-time leading scorer with 228.
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