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So much so that you sense some of the players are strangely relieved to be facing Tottenham this afternoon.
Perhaps not the likes of Tony Adams and Lee Dixon, who thrive on facing the old Mancunian enemy, but a number of the foreign players, who were terrorised by the United defeat. Gilles Grimandi admits that he had sleepless nights after the game, while Pires, his fellow Frenchman, still thinks about the d?cle. “I know it sounds crazy,” says the Arsenal No 7, “but I think we’re better off playing in a mad-cap derby against Spurs. At least we know how to beat them.”Arsenal won the dress rehearsal 2-0 last week, when Ars? Wenger’s men eased past a team who looked more like Tottenham reserves. Spurs, though, could welcome back several key players today, while the Messiah, Glenn Hoddle, has had a week to work his magic on the squad. “We beat them last Saturday,” Pires says, “but that was in the League and at Highbury. Spurs will be desperate for revenge and none of us expect them to field the same team or use the same tactics.

This is a Cup semi-final between two fierce rivals who are desperate to win.”Derby matches are virtually unheard of in France, where you rarely have two teams in the same town. No wonder, then, that even a player of Pires’s experience, who has played on some of the biggest stages with Marseille and France, finds it hard to express his feelings ahead of the game. “The intensity of this meeting is incredible,” says the French international, who has improved beyond recognition since his quiet start to the season. “When I played for Marseille I thought their fans were the loudest in the world, but now I know I was wrong. The Gunners win that accolade.”Observers at Wednesday’s 2-1 victory over Valencia in the Champions’ League quarter-final, when an exquisite Pires back-heel set-up Thierry Henry’s equaliser, would testify to that. Rarely can there have been such a noise inside Highbury as when Ray Parlour’s thunderous right-foot shot hit the back of the Spanish net.

The England international’s goal had capped 120 seconds, during which Arsenal scored twice to give themselves a fighting chance for the second leg.”What a racket,” Pires says “I’ve never heard anything like it The Arsenal fans never cease to amaze me. It’s wonderful to play for a club where every man, woman and child screams for you at the top of their lungs.”Pires adds: “It’s an unbelievable sensation to be standing on the pitch when the whole crowd erupts. When Ray [Parlour] scored the winner on Wednesday, I thought Highbury was going to collapse. As a Frenchman, I had never experienced that kind of support That’s why I sometimes stand back and just look around me. The intensity is such that I often think the fans are about to pour on to the pitch.