Wayne Rooney left little doubt about how he views the gulf between his 2007\u201308 Manchester United team and Arsenal in 2025\u201326. Speaking during his appearance on Amazon Prime Video coverage of Arsenal\u2019s trip to northern Italy, he smiled broadly and offered a terse verdict: “We\u2019d batter them,” with a big grin on his face.<\/p>\n
Arsenal arrive at this stage as favourites in the Champions League after a hard-fought and deserved win against Inter in Milan. The club remain on course for an unprecedented quadruple: they sit first in the Premier League, lead at the halfway stage of their Carabao Cup semi-final against Chelsea and are comfortably through to the next round of the FA Cup. It is still a very tall order, but no English club has managed a quadruple before.<\/p>\n
Manchester United\u2019s 2007\u201308 side did secure the Premier League and Champions League, only to be denied a treble by a shock FA Cup defeat to eventual winners Portsmouth. A quadruple also eluded them after Coventry City inflicted a surprise in the Carling Cup equivalent at the time.<\/p>\n
Rooney contrasted those achievements with Arsenal\u2019s recent record. “At this moment in time, Arteta\u2019s Gunners have won nothing.” Their last piece of silverware was the 2019\u201320 FA Cup, almost six years ago, and they have not reached a final since. The club has finished second in the Premier League in each of the past three seasons while trying to change that outcome.<\/p>\n
Rooney\u2019s comparison was underscored by the players he referenced from both teams. The 2007\u201308 United side is remembered with Edwin van der Sar in goal; Wes Brown, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidi\u0107 and Patrice Evra across the back line; Paul Scholes, Michael Carrick and Ryan Giggs in midfield; and Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez up front. Arsenal\u2019s current matchday names include David Raya; Jurri\u00ebn Timber, William Saliba, Gabriel and Riccardo Calafiori; Declan Rice, Mart\u00edn Zubimendi and Martin \u00d8degaard in midfield; with Bukayo Saka and Viktor Gy\u00f6keres leading the attack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rooney says 2007\u201308 United would “We\u2019d batter them,” as Arsenal chase an unprecedented quadruple 25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6135,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,179,969],"tags":[826,1066,1047],"class_list":["post-6136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-manchester-united","category-premier-league","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-carabao-cup","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}