Arsenal and Manchester United’s mid-2000s clashes were the stuff of legend. Two title-contending teams, led by iconic managers, packed with skilful players and captained by two modern-day hard men.
Rarely would a clash go by without some sort of bust-up, but perhaps the most infamous run-in was the 2005 Highbury tunnel incident when tempers flared before the teams even got on the pitch.
Captains Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira were to the two chief protagonists, with the Red Devils skipper telling the Frenchman, “I’ll see you out there” after he accused Vieira of picking on Gary Neville.
The three players have now reflected on the incident, with Vieira revealing his motives behind planning the whole drama.
Neville kicked off the story, telling Sky Bet’s Stick to Football: “The context of this is that we’re warming up before the game and I run down the tunnel at Highbury, and I can hear thuds behind me all of a sudden, and Patrick shouting my name, ‘Oi you,’ or something like that. He ran up behind me in the tunnel and said, ‘You won’t kick our f*cking players today,’ or something like that.”
Vieira then gave his side of the run-in.
“That was planned by me,” he said. “Because of the nine years I spent at Arsenal, I didn’t like you at all. It is true, I couldn’t stand you at all [Gary Neville] because you were kicking everybody, and especially Robert [Pires] when he was there. In that game I was like I must make you aware that today you are not going to touch Robert - I knew that was the plan for you because you struggled against Robert.
“That day I had to tell you to leave him alone. I felt that you were over the top against him. Robert was nice, he was too nice to complain, and I felt at that time you went over the top, it was too much, and it was too obvious. Obviously, because of Manchester United controlling all the referees, you had so much power you were allowed to do what you really wanted to do, so I had it planned in my mind.
“In the warmup, if I saw you going into the tunnel, I would run after you. I saw you running, and I just ran behind you and wanted to make you aware that today would be different and something that wasn’t going to happen.”
Neville added: “I went to the dressing room, and I used to sit next to Denis [Irwin] and Roy [Keane]. I think I said to Denis and Roy that Vieira’s just had a go at me in the tunnel – that's the first time that’s ever happened to me in my life. Obviously, we then walk out, and this happened [the famous tunnel incident].
“To give you the context, Arsenal are in the tunnel when we get there and we walk down, I'm fifth in line, Roy walks down to the bottom, towards the referees, and Patrick is doing his laces halfway up the tunnel. Roy’s gone past him, then Patrick has started again in the tunnel, and then Roy comes back and that’s when it all kicks off.”
Keane then rounds out the story with his take on events.
“I came out and I knew there were noises,” he said. “I forgot my armband so that’s why I had to go back up the tunnel. When I came back out the second time, I knew that something had gone on, and I remember what you [Gary] told me previously. I was quite relaxed with it actually, I never used to get involved in stuff like that, in the tunnel. I was agitated. My annoyance was that he went after Gary – you go after one, you go after all of us.”
Manchester United would go on to register a 4-2 win at Highbury, but come the end of the season they were both trailing in the wake of Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea, who won their first title for 50 years.
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