"That's more like us," said Sir Alex Ferguson afterwards, but his demeanour was not that of a satisfied individual. Manchester United had matched Arsenal in reaching a 17th FA Cup final - of which 11 have been won, including five under Ferguson - but the United manager was hardly glowing with inner peace.
Given that United are 14 points behind Chelsea in the Premiership, have been eliminated from the European Cup by Milan before the quarter-final stage and are still not guaranteed a trophy this season, he had reason to be reticent.
But at least he had seen Ruud van Nistelrooy score his first goal since November 27, and when asked if he was pleased about that he replied: "Everybody in that dressing room is delighted. Ruud is like any other striker. When he's scoring he thinks he can't miss; when he's not scoring he doesn't think he's going to."
Ferguson countered the sense of anticipation about a first FA Cup final between United and Arsenal for 26 years by saying ruefully that he recalled Alan Sunderland's dramatic late winner for Arsenal that sunny Wembley day.
That match proved nothing can be taken for granted when the two meet, even though United have beaten Arsenal twice in the Premiership this season and once in the League Cup.
It had been a week in which Wayne Rooney's alleged slap, Rio Ferdinand's alleged tap and Malcolm Glazer's real and serious bid for the club had put United back on the front page. Imagine if Newcastle had won yesterday. So there was relief in the mix of emotions and it applied chiefly to Van Nistelrooy.
"That was a real centre-forward's performance and the first goal was a Ruud van Nistelrooy goal. It came out of nothing, there was no real power to it but the goalkeeper couldn't be expected to swivel to get to it."
Accepting that Van Nistelrooy looked physically stronger than for some time, including in the games against Milan, Ferguson still called his European decision to select the Dutchman a "sensible mistake. He could've scored a hat-trick against Milan."
Not that Van Nistelrooy was being blamed. Ferguson said his team should have had goals "through out", and yesterday Paul Scholes and Ronaldo delivered.
"The decisive goal was the second [from Scholes]," said Ferguson. "Newcastle had to gamble in the second half; we thought they would. They put on Patrick Kluivert to play three up front and that played into our hands. Had the pitch not been so sticky we might have scored more."'