Arsenal looking to delay Manchester Utd’s title party

Manchester United could be celebrating their 18th league title by 2.30pm tomorrow as they take on Arsenal at Old Trafford needing just one point to seal the deal. They will retain the trophy for an unprecedented sixth time, and it will be the first hat-trick of titles claimed since Liverpool across 1982-84.

Sir Alex Ferguson will have a full squad to choose from, and both Paul Scholes and Wayne Rooney are within three goals of scoring 100 for Manchester United. It will be the 40th time that the two longest-serving managers in the Premier League face each other, but Arsene Wenger's position at the Emirates is altogether shakier than Ferguson's at Old Trafford.

Wenger's team cannot achieve higher than fourth place this season, and the Frenchman was publicly chided by the club's hierarchy this week for what is seen as another season of under-achievement. There will be happier faces if they can delay the Manchester United juggernaut with a rare victory at Old Trafford, and Arsenal will join Rafa Benitez's Liverpool as the only teams to do the double over Man Utd.

Liverpool travel to West Brom as the only team that can halt United's coronation. A victory at the Hawthorns would doom the Baggies, leaving them with a double-digit goal difference to make up in their last game. Benitez has a full squad to choose from, and Steven Gerrard will be happy to top off a week when he won the Football Writers' Association player of the year award with a good performance.

The only live race in the league is for the seventh spot that should guarantee a place in the Europa League. Fulham are two points ahead of Spurs and West Ham, but the play away at St James's Park against a Newcastle who could save themselves from relegation with a win, so the three London clubs could go down to the last game of the season in the race for European football next season.

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING
David Hytner, the Guardian: "United still need a point to guarantee their record-equalling 18th league title but Arsene Wenger is alive to the motivational possibilities of watching the champions win the title. If his team cannot prevent what many see as the inevitable United result, they would have to endure the spectacle of their rivals lifting the Premier League trophy to a backdrop of pyrotechnics, streamers and partying supporters. Wenger, though, would want his players to suck it all up."

Oliver Kay, the Times: "Rafael Benitez finally conceded defeat in the Barclays Premier League title race yesterday. However, the Liverpool manager claimed that it would have been a different story for his club and Manchester United this season had Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres not suffered a succession of injuries that denied them the opportunity to play together for much of the campaign. Torres has started only 18 of Liverpool's 36 league matches this season, missing large chunks of the campaign with a hamstring injury, and, with Gerrard suffering from a groin problem that has restricted him to 28 starts, the two players have started 12 league games together. Of those 12 matches, Liverpool have won nine and drawn three, but their injury problems, which exposed a lack of quality in reserve, cost Benitez's team." ·