united created the first significant opportunity of the game, around the midway point of the first half, when a header from steve bruce was inadvertently cleared by his own teammate mcclair in the arsenal goal. in the meantime, arsenal manager george graham spotted that the marking in midfield was poor and instructed limpar and rocastle to push forward, while striker paul merson was given a deeper role to follow mike phelan. arsenal took the lead two minutes before half-time; limpar made a run across united's penalty area to receive paul davis' corner from the right hand side. united "clearly believed this was a dummy run", hence why phelan made no attempt to challenge. davis passed the ball short to limpar, who turned and curled it goalwards into the penalty area with his left foot. although goalkeeper les sealey "did well to get down to the ball", he was unable to hold it; referee keith hackett deemed the ball to have crossed the goal line and gave the goal. ferguson offered no complaints about hackett's decision afterwards: "the video showed quite clearly the referee was right and the ball crossed the line."