52 min Van Persie teases in a ball from the left, with Arsenal suddenly looking a lot looser at the back. His ball is just ahead of Rooooooooooney in the middle, though.
51 min Far more even contest so far in this half, but Jones, who's been everywhere thus far, ends a promising United move with an overhit cross. Here are the emailed thoughts of Nik Swift:
Appropriate greeting for Van Persie? Depends how seriously you take your football and whether the Arsenal fans can accept RVP decision - shown to be correct in all aspects. But applause for being a clever boy are in order. Why stick with a poor functioning team, it's not like he was an Arsenal product. Now if Jack Wilshire left for another London club then boos would be in order. Arsenal haven't looked like achieving anything in years and don't look like doing so in the future. To be honest RVP always looked like a Man Utd player since he first arrived in the EPL. Just surprised he didn't make the move sooner.
48 min Nice work from Rosicky, charging forward from deep and finding Ramsey ahead of him to his left. I think Ramsey's aiming for Podolski, in space on the right, with his subsequent pass but Rosicky collects it, annoyingly. Still, he manages to work the ball into shooting position and tries a reasonable curling effort with the outside of his boot. Just wide.
46 min Here comes a second half. Manchester United kick off. The Arsenal players all applaud.
16.49 United were coming into that even before the penalty, but what a moment of monumental idiocy from Sagna, who played a suicidal pass to Van Persie then fouled him like a big stupid stupidhead. United extremely lucky to go in on terms, but Arsenal were oddly unconvincing despite giving the under-par champions a battering for much of that half. You can't see them looking so listless in this second half, and the game has now shifted to a point where Arsenal need to scrap to get back into it. It should not have been this way. Silly boy Bacary. Silly, silly, silly, silly boy. See you in 15.