Paul Scholes was one of our few remaining players who was there for the hate-filled contests with Arsenal, back in the days when they used to win things.

He will have particularly painful memories of those winning days, after it was his penalty miss during the FA Cup final in 2005 which saw them collect their last piece of silverware.

Since then, he has won four league titles, the European Cup, two League Cups and the World Club Cup, which surely has helped ease the agony he surely felt that day.

Having now retired, Scholes has been asked about his opinion of Arsenal, in light of Samir Nasri being tipped to fill his boots in the centre of our midfield. As you can imagine, there is no love lost, with Scholes talking bluntly about our rivals’ decline.

“They just flatter to deceive,” he said. “They may play the prettiest football, but it doesn’t always produce the results they need. It doesn’t irritate me that people say they’re the best footballing team because while they are doing that, we are winning games. They do play the best football to watch at times, but what is the point of that if you are not winning anything? Not only that, they are potentially going to lose their best players in Fabregas, Nasri and Clichy. I don’t think our manager would allow this club to go six years without a trophy. You can’t say it won’t happen, because you only have to think of what Liverpool went through, but I don’t think our manager will allow that to happen to us.”