'Ruud van Nistelrooy yesterday reacquainted himself with his prolific scoring touch, producing his first goals since November, to beat Newcastle United and set up the heavyweight FA Cup final that everyone expected.
For the United of Manchester it will be their 17th final in the competition, as it will be for Arsenal, who as easily defeated Blackburn on Saturday, while for Newcastle there was the numbing disappointment of crashing out of two cups in four days. To add to the hurt, they suffered from the same 4-1 scoreline that saw them beaten by Sporting Lisbon on Thursday to end their Uefa Cup campaign. It will be a bitter, and all-too-familiar, pill to swallow.
If Newcastle's season is in tatters, Manchester United's has fired into life and will now be fuelled by next month's final and the unfolding desire to overtake Arsenal in the meantime and finish ahead of them and second in the Premiership. For neutrals there is the delicious prospect of one of two great clubs, and their feuding managers, inflicting the defeat that will leave the other with the rare sensation of not winning a trophy.
The final will be the fourth meeting between the two clubs this season but the first in an FA Cup final since the epic 1979 encounter which finished 3-2 to Arsenal. "I can still see that winning goal," the United manager Sir Alex Ferguson said of Alan Sunderland's late winner. He will be plotting a revenge and will be glad to do so with Van Nistelrooy scoring at last after his barren spell which followed three months of injury and led to Ferguson blaming himself for rushing the striker back too soon.
"What I hope is that Ruud maintains his scoring," Ferguson said. "When he is doing that he is unstoppable." He added: "I think that when we score goals it is more like it. It has been a problem for us this season. I don't understand it myself because there are goals all through the team."
On Van Nistelrooy Ferguson added: "When they are scoring they don't think they can miss and when they don't they don't think they can score again."
United's midfielder Darren Fletcher said that Van Nistelrooy had been "magnificent" and added that people had to remember that he had come back from a "serious" Achilles injury. "It is going to be a hard game against Arsenal," the midfielder added. "It is something to look forward to at the end of the season. It is going to be built up by the Press and everyone but we will be concentrating on playing football and getting the right result."