James Lawton: Ferguson focused on Arsenal flaws and epic title race ahead

Momentum swings to United manager encouraged by players returning from injury and mental fragility of champions

An agonising – and familiar – question for Arsène Wenger today as he urges on his Arsenal to make an emphatic statement of Premiership title ambition against Fulham: has fatal encouragement been offered to his old nemesis, Sir Alex Ferguson?

That has to be the Frenchman's fear as Manchester United travel to Southampton just six points back with a game in hand and a looming appointment at Highbury on Easter Monday. The sense is of a gathering storm around a race of potentially epic quality.

There were, though, times at Anfield this week when United's analysis of their chances of catching Arsenal appeared to be necessarily bleak. The note-taking of the Old Trafford coach, Carlos Queiroz, became increasingly frenetic, perhaps understandably considering the speed of Thierry Henry's feet and Dennis Bergkamp's mind.

Beside Queiroz, his boss Ferguson had a face inscrutable enough to belong to a Russian tank commander who had just run out of fuel.

Mercifully, though, so did Arsenal. Run out of fuel, that is, and for Ferguson the particular encouragement was surely that the deficiency seemed most critical in the area of the mind.

Technically, Arsenal had a superiority over the former contenders Liverpool that could only be described as exquisite. But, as for their mental strength, Bergkamp apart, you did not have to look anything like so hard for signs of vulnerability.

It meant Liverpool, out-run and out-thought all night long, denied Arsène Wenger's men the two extra points that would have extended their lead over United to eight. Even with a match in hand, United's 6-4 odds against regaining the Premiership title would have lengthened quite sharply.

But there is one sure way to invite Ferguson back into a title fight. It is to offer him a sniff of blood. Arsenal did that at Old Trafford a few weeks ago, when the ill-considered Phil Neville played the game of his life in a second-string United midfield and Arsenal, with Patrick Vieira almost a spectator, subsided gently. Chelsea's coach, Claudio Ranieri, who, with Newcastle's Sir Bobby Robson, is the only other notional runner in the footsteps of the Arsenal and United managers, donated a few more droplets when he surrendered to Ferguson's aggressive instincts at Old Trafford by withdrawing Eidur Gudjohnsen and leaving Gianfranco Zola alone up front. Diego Forlan duly snatched a late victory and Ferguson felt the kind of adrenalin surge that came when United secured their historic treble in 1999.

Momentum is the most dangerous tool you can put in the hands of a man like Ferguson, and Wenger knows it well enough. That, be sure, is the reason he bit so hard on the question that had to be asked at Anfield last Wednesday night when Henry, after all his previous exploits, still managed to steal the breath away and Bergkamp conspired to be both hard and sublime at the same time and Robert Pires appeared to have sorcery to burn.

How, given that beautifully fluid movement between defence and attack, with Vieira a combatant again and Gilberto Silva never less than bitingly relevant, could Wenger respond so tritely to Liverpool's desperate resort to three strikers?

With just four minutes and stoppage time left, Wenger withdrew Bergkamp, who had created one goal with a pass of surreal artistry and scored another, and sent on the defender Oleg Luzhny. Wenger gave a list of reasons for his decision. One, Bergkamp had a small problem with his foot, something which had appeared not to have been overwhelmingly obvious to his distraught markers. Two, it was a response to Gérard Houllier's throwing in of Milan Baros beside Emile Heskey and Michael Owen. Three, the replacing of Bergkamp was irrelevant to the fact that Arsenal defended atrociously when Heskey made his free header count in the first minute of added time. Finally, Arsenal would have got all three points if the referee had not incorrectly awarded a Liverpool a corner.

Which all went to prove that four small truths are not as important as one big one. Wenger had a strong hand, and one that had been played beautifully for most of the night. Why surrender it? Why rob yourself of a player at the very top of his superb game, someone willing and able to hold the ball and kill the clock and still maintain the capacity to terrorise an entire defence?

The quirk of a football genius, maybe; evidence of a growing tension in the Arsenal camp as United show clear signs of finding again the old arrogance of natural-born winners? Perhaps. One thing that is not in doubt is that, with a surge of recoveries from injury and boldly timed operations, United have regained the depth of squad strength which for so long has separated them from all their domestic rivals.

Even as Henry glided behind the Liverpool defence with such astonishing facility, and Bergkamp and Pires became chief tormentors of Liverpool's desperately stretched defence, it was still possible to compare the overall strength of Arsenal and United. Which Arsenal players beyond that superb trio would automatically claim a first-team place at Old Trafford? Vieira, no doubt, but then who? After that it becomes a push.

One key to the race is surely the performances of Ruud van Nistelrooy and Henry between now and the end of the season? Here, too, the message for Ferguson at Anfield could have been more intimidating. Henry moved majestically at all times, but several times there were flashes of greed – and twice he chose to shoot from impossible angles on the goal-line when team-mates were available and unguarded in front of goal.

That was a flaw in the diamond. Another was the failure of organisation and authority in defence when Sol Campbell and his co-defenders stood and watched Heskey send in his deliberate, damaging equaliser.

By now, coach Queiroz will have worked through his notes. Their bottom line, however, will have long been absorbed by Ferguson. It says that, for all their poise, Arsenal are still a team who can be caught and beaten. Ferguson did not need to see the notes. He could read that in the trail of Wenger's blood.