3. Arsenal
To me Uniteds greatest, most entertaining and most memorable rivalry has been with Arsenal. Arsenal may have dropped slightly off the pace in recent years but I greatly admired Wegners teams. They had such wonderful players that were great to watch, such as Bergkamp, Pires, Overmars, Wright, Adams and Viera. In the 2003-04 season they won the title without being beaten whilst playing fantastic football. This was a truly wonderful achievement. Arsenal and briefly Chelsea have been the only teams that have came close to depriving Fergie of trophies on a regular basis. The rivalry was sometimes bitter but it was massively competitive and Arsenal were such a great side during this period, perhaps the best in the premier league era. It is a testament to how great that Arsenal side was, and a testament to Fergies longevity, that despite this pressure from Arsenal, he has continued, adapted and remained a serial winner. My favourite moments from these tussles with Arsenal have been Keown shouting in Ruud van Nistelrooys face and Schmeichels confrontations with Ian Wright. I also enjoyed how Arsene Wenger managed to combine two eras of the club and turn them in to a title winning team. Echoing what Fergie did with United, Wegner took a core of veterans like Seaman, Adams, Keown, Winterburn and Wright and coupled them with Overmars and Berkamp to create a winning combination. This really appeals to the romantic in me and makes me feel that something special has been lost along the way in recent years. And with the retirement of Fergie, that gap between the eras, has got even bigger.