Ferguson senses glory in Highbury decider

For the boys who have been his companions throughout Manchester United's glory years; Beckham, the Nevilles, Giggs, Scholes and Butt, overcoming Arsenal and then taking the championship would in the eyes of Sir Alex Ferguson, prove their finest hour.

It is a decade since most appeared in the FA Youth Cup final and although they have scaled many peaks since, Ferguson considers pulling back this Arsenal side, which on the day United surrendered the Worthington Cup to Liverpool, were eight points clear, to be in sight of an eighth Premiership title, might top them all.

"If we win it from here, it will be the players' greatest achievement," declared the Manchester United manager, who was in relaxed mood before this evening's "championship decider" at Highbury. "In terms of titles, the first one [1993] was going to be hardest for myself because it had been 26 years since we'd won it. That was always the albatross around my neck and it affected the players, directors and supporters. Last season we made terrible mistakes and our home record – six defeats – cost us the league. Seven players were operated upon for injuries, we had a tough first part of the season, and now you see the momentum gathering. It's not easy to be eight points behind and come back. It needs a good team to do that."

United have eaten away bigger leads, most notably in 1996 when Newcastle's 12-point advantage was ground down in the space of two months, culminating in a match not unlike tonight's when United travelled to St James' Park, rode a torrent of aggression, and, thanks to a wonderfully directed strike from Eric Cantona, emerged as 1-0 winners. This, however, would give Ferguson considerably greater satisfaction. Yesterday he pointedly praised Newcastle's fans as "the most fantastic, passionate supporters in the country, including my own"; but he would not talk about Arsenal at all.

He has long been irritated by the champions, not least Arsène Wenger's statement that they would go through the season without losing a match. Ferguson attacked their manager's "arrogance" and "triumphalism" earlier in the campaign, when it appeared the only question would be the margin of Arsenal's victory.

There are still question marks over the big players. Roy Keane, who limped off with a dead leg at Newcastle, is likely to be fit, as will his counterpart, Patrick Vieira, who failed to complete Arsenal's FA Cup semi-final victory over Sheffield United. Since Keane has been at times a ghost of the player he was before his hip operation, Vieira's fitness is more crucial. Both managers may have to gamble on their talismen, Robert Pires and David Beckham, neither of whom has fully recovered from injury.

If history is with Arsenal – every season bar one under Wenger they have finished the season more strongly than United – the momentum is in Manchester. To have scored 10 against Liverpool and Newcastle might appear like a storm warning to London. Wenger coolly played down the significance of these victories. "We have beaten difficult teams who look a little bit less prestigious than Liverpool or Newcastle but I think a team like Everton [whom they overcame 2-1] is maybe a bit more difficult to beat at the moment than anybody else."

When asked for pivotal moments in the final stages of this campaign, both managers chose cup games. "This team has a deep strength that I believe in," said Wenger. "When you don't expect them to show that strength, they always express it. The last time was at Chelsea [in the FA Cup quarter-final]. We played there 48 hours after beating Everton and everyone expected us to fail. The team responded very well and I'm sure this is the response you will get against Manchester United."

For Ferguson it was a defeat, albeit a thrilling one at the Bernabeu to Real Madrid. "Everything I said would happen in Madrid happened and maybe the players said to themselves that they should have listened more. I'm not saying they didn't listen but Raul is a particularly dangerous player to handle. We left too many people at the back doing nothing. That was a great lesson for us. I think defeat was a great thing for us, I really do, and you saw that at Newcastle.

"Our players are good at learning lessons. They have had to do it in the past. That's been a quality of our teams over the years. They have had good character and that's a quality you can't leave in the dressing-room."

Should they step on to the pitch with it at Highbury tonight, the struggle for the title might end with a knock-out blow.