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Man Utd vs Arsenal; The Treble vs The Invincibles

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Having just wrote a similar piece to this about the 1999 Treble-winning Champions League final compared to Liverpool’s 2005 comeback win (which you can read here), I drifted to what else Man Utd’s treble-winning season has to rival it and naturally Arsenal’s ‘Invincible’ class of 2004 came to mind.

As with my last piece, I am going to take the side of Man Utd and while I may be polarising opinion, I firmly believe that winning any sort of Treble is better than going the season unbeaten.

Look at it this way: with a treble you know you have three trophies, whatever they may be. With an unbeaten league season, sure you’re chances of winning the thing are largely increased but it is still by no means mathematically certain that you will be top after 38 games. Obviously Arsenal did win in 2004 but unfortunately not losing a game in the league doesn’t impact on how you fare in other competitions.; the 2003/04 Premiership is the only piece of silverware Arsenal have to show for their heroic efforts that season.

Of course whether you’re going for the three trophies or going for an unbeaten campaign, you will need luck, and lots of it. More so when it comes to being Invincible. Let us remember that Arsenal did actually lose six games in the 2003/04 season, it’s just that none of them came in the league. For comparision, Man Utd’s treble-winning team only lost four games (three of which came in the league). Would Arsenal have won more with a more even distribution of losses throughout all competitions? I’ll leave that for you to decide…

What it all comes down to is what you prefer. Of course to me a trophy is a trophy and if you look at it objectively, Arsenal only won the League whereas Man Utd won the League, FA Cup and the Champions League. Who cares if they lost a few games along the way, they still ended up winning it didn’t they? And they won two other trophies to boot!

I loved watching Man Utd’s 1998/99 season (and not just the last two minutes of it, the whole thing!). There were so many highlights, from the Champions League Semi-final against Juventus, the final of course against Munich, the FA Cup Semi where Ryan Giggs scored that goal and Peter Schmeichel saved Dennis Bergkamp’s extra-time penalty plus the final itself where they lifted the trophy. And I haven’t even mentioned the highlights from that season’s league campaign! I’m sure you can find a few. How many highlights from specific games can you take from Arsenal’s unbeaten season? Not as many, that’s for sure. The drama of Arsenal’s season just wasn’t on par with the Treble season and so for me, it will always play second fiddle.

The fact that Arsenal lost more games in their so called ‘Invincible’ season that Man Utd did in their Treble season invalidates a lot of the pro-Invincible argument too. Couple that with the fact that a whopping THREE of those six defeats were at home, how can a team of Invincibles be so prone to losing in their own backyard?

I’m sure that any Arsenal fan reading this will disagree and have reasons why an unbeaten season is better than winning the Treble. I’d love to hear them! Leave a comment and I’ll get back to you ASAP. As for now I’m off to complete a Treble of my own; the chocolate, vanilla and strawberry cakes in celebration of my mother’s birthday are not going to eat themselves and I shall devour eat piece in the ruthless manner that saw Man Utd to success all those years ago.

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  • lodish says:

    wining the treble is great but not unique,unique achievement is always rear to come by.

  • Isaiah Mutoro says:

    Trebble-winnning is more important than the invincibles.

  • T-phranck says:

    The invincibles is the NAME and ARSENAL is the team.man u cannot compare themselves with them and dont forget they are the BEST TEAM ever to play in the EPL

  • Devito says:

    Not a united or arsenal fan but winning q champions league in Itself is better than doing an invincible. I would rather win a champions league anyday than do an invincible so of course uniteds treble team is better than arsenals invincibles

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