Ruud van Nistelrooy has made a joke about the Arsenal fans giving him a hearty greet at the Emirates Stadium after helping the ‘Invincibles’ to an unbeaten record in 2003-04.
The PSV Eindhoven boss will be back at the club on Thursday when they face Arsenal in the European League. Van Nistelrooy has been with Manchester United since 2001, scoring 150 goals in five seasons.
The infamous mistake
But it’s probably for this flaw that he’s best known. Gooners defender Martin Keown, after he overreacted at his last mis-kick in a Premier League match against Arsenal at Old Trafford (0-0) in 2003. On that day, five men were penalized in the ensuing brawl.
After celebrating a mistake he made against Van Nistelrooy, Keown was given his three-match suspension by the Football Association, and he was fined £20,000. A mistake made in the sixth game of the season ended the campaign.
In fact, fans of Nistelrooy know that such a situation will not repeat itself when Eindhoven plays Arsenal in Group A of the Europa League. But he doesn’t mind being bullied. Even if it was a painful episode at the time, it’s part of his history as a player, and he’s happy to embrace it. He stated that the contest and the incident at Old Trafford in October 2004, which broke Arsenal’s undefeated league record of almost 50 games, were the 2 most memorable incidents in the UK.
The memories come back
He stated that he never really reacted to the situation after the mistake, due to the unbelievable frustration of not being able to bring victory to my club. Both teams were under a lot of pressure as they battled for access to the Premier League, and this match could have decided everything.
20 years have passed. But when he returned to the UK and Arsenal, the remembering of those days came flooding back. This is one of his two notoriously known matches. But now he has fully recovered and is ready to bring victory to his club and recover from his mistake.
