Ferdinand:
"It will be a good statement if we win but I don't think it will be an outright yes that who wins the game will win the league.
"We need to make sure we give a good account of ourselves and get the points to keep us at the right end of the league.
"We have been scoring a lot of goals recently which is a big difference to the start of the season.
"We seem to be putting them in the net now and that bodes well.
"We have got to continue and sustain it over a long period of time, if we can be in this position after the Christmas period then we will be in a great position."
Ronaldo:
"Arsenal are very strong and are playing fantastic, attractive football..
"It will be a big game for us but it's a good opportunity to see how good we are.
"Arsenal have started well but the season is a marathon - you have to be consistent."
Stapleton:
"The teams have been rivals for a long, long time, not just in recent years, and over the more recent years the transfer market has changed.
"Very few players in the last couple of decades have gone from one big club to another. The route has been circuitous with, say, Paul Ince arriving at Liverpool from Manchester United via Inter Milan."
Stapleton is one of only a few players to be transferred between the clubs:
"They set mine at £900,000. Trevor Francis had become the first £1 million player when he moved from Birmingham to Forest a couple of years earlier, and I think they wanted to avoid reaching the figure.
"I didn't find it difficult moving from such a big club to another so big; if anything it helped. In any era, joining United is hard because of the expectation levels. You have to be able to deal with that, and deal with the success on a regular basis.
"I see it as potentially a hesitant match. There will be maybe more tension and passion than in the past couple of years, when Chelsea were the dominant force.
"Arsene Wenger has rebuilt his team and United are in form, so the prospect is that the quality of football could be exhilarating, and everybody who watches will be off their seats for the 90 minutes."