Majestic Man U enter final

Defending champions drub Arsenal 3-1 in the second leg semis

They did it with a speed that was devastating. Manchester United were a team in a hurry, a team that played as though they were still smarting from the way Arsenal had escaped with only a 1-0 defeat at Old Trafford last Wednesday.

The skies were still a handsome blue by the time we could safely circle their name as Champions League finalists. The clock said 11 minutes. Sir Alex Ferguson was on his first stick of Orbit. There were players on the pitch who did not have a single scuff of mud on their kit.

Football can be brutal sometimes. It was 7.53pm when Kieran Gibbs lost his footing and let in Park Ji-Sung for a goal that may have Arsenal's 19-year-old left-back waking in a cold sweat for more nights than he will care to remember this summer. By 7.56pm Cristiano Ronaldo had flashed his free-kick beyond Manuel Almunia and the Arsenal crowd fell silent. There were 79 minutes of slow torture for them to endure and everyone inside the Emirates stadium knew at that point there was no way back for Arsène Wenger's side.

Wenger had spoken beforehand of the European Cup being an “obsession.” Now we could see him in the dugout dragging his fingers down his face. These are the moments when a coach or manager must be overcome by a terrible sense of helplessness. How could Wenger have possibly bargained for Gibbs slipping to the ground? Who could have imagined that Almunia, the goalkeeper who had single-handedly prevented a rout in the first leg, would allow a shot from 35 yards to beat him at his near post? If that sounds unappreciative of Ronaldo's gifts then it is unintended because, love him or loathe him, what cannot be disputed is his unerring self-confidence to shoot from such a seemingly impossible angle and distance in the first place. Ronaldo was, in short, phenomenal. The criticism of him not performing well in United's most important matches was a legitimate one 18 months ago, but after his goal here and the 40-yarder he also scored at Estadio do Dragao it is now a redundant issue.

Almunia, in fairness, recovered well, preventing the night from being an even more chastening one for those Arsenal supporters who had cranked up such an impressive volume early on but had now resorted to the traditional old cop-out of hurling abuse at either Ronaldo or the Italian officials. Gibbs, however, did not re-appear after the interval. A Champions League semi-final is an unforgiving place and it is not difficult to imagine the devastating consequences of this moment.

Ferguson's tactic, playing a 4-3-2-1 system with Ronaldo as the spearhead, had worked majestically. As had been the case at Old Trafford, Darren Fletcher was the game's dominant midfielder, with Michael Carrick not too far behind. Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic made a mockery of Emmanuel Adebayor's pretensions to be recognised as one of Europe's best centre-forwards. Patrice Evra snuffed out the threat of Theo Walcott. And then, of course, there was Wayne Rooney, playing as well as at any time of his professional life. One moment that demonstrates why Rooney is so special: it is three minutes after United have made it 2-0 and he can be seen charging back into his own half to help out Evra at left-back.

By the time Ronaldo, Park, and Rooney had set up a third goal of breathtaking speed and skill, the United supporters had already started singing about it all being “so effing easy.” Soon afterwards Ferguson could take off Evra and Rooney to avert any risk of either player picking up a yellow card that would rule them out of the final. Ferguson's caution was understandable and that is why, in the end, this felt like a bittersweet night for United. Fletcher was an unused substitute when United beat Chelsea in Moscow last year but this time he would almost certainly have been in Ferguson's team in Rome on 27 May. He plays for the most hated team in the country, of course, and some of the Arsenal supporters certainly seemed to enjoy the red card that will mean he is suspended from the final. This, however, was not a moment to celebrate, the only consolation being that if Fletcher is to suffer the same torment that Paul Scholes and Roy Keane endured in 1999 this United team look capable of getting him back to another final in the future. Not that it will make him feel much better right now.