ARSENE Wenger might be keeping tight-lipped about the possibility after he ended up with enough egg on his face last season to please the most sadistic custard pie thrower - but the prospect of Arsenal becoming the first club to finish a Premiership season unbeaten becomes more real by the week.

And with the Gunners still firing on all cylinders in the FA Cup and Champions League, the Highbury high-flyers could still eclipse Manchester United's much-heralded treble in 1999 by not losing a domestic league game.

Error-prone German goalkeeper Jens Lehmann appears to be the biggest chink in the Gunners' armoury but I for one would love it, just as Kevin Keegan might over the road at the City of Manchester Stadium, if the Red Devils' achievement was over-shadowed by Wenger's boys.

I have never been a massive Manchester United fan. Not since I was repeatedly told as a schoolboy that they were the "best" club in England but failed to win a league title until I was in my 20th year and long out of short trousers.

Since then, the club's tendency towards occasional arrogance has only increased my chagrin towards ITV's favourite football team despite an admittedly more successful period on the field.

Having devalued the FA Cup's importance by withdrawing from football's most famous domestic competition to get stuffed in an embarrassing World Club tournament, I feel that Alex Ferguson - I can not bring myself to call him Sir - has now done the same to the Premiership, perhaps in the greed to acquire unlikely Champions League riches.

Ferguson opted to rest Ryan Giggs, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Tim Howard for Saturday's 1-1 draw at Fulham as the title was all but surrendered to Arsenal more than two months before the official end to the season.

And for what? The forlorn hope of going further in the Champions League with a defence that makes more mistakes than a bottom-of-the-class maths pupil.

Leeds United's fight to stay in the Premiership will now hold more interest for me than the winners' trophy's inevitable arrival at Highbury's marble halls.

Ferguson's unusually calm and relaxed response to the Loftus Road draw suggested either an uncharacteristically generous concession that his team are second best this season to Arsenal's superior blend of pace, skill and energy at best or, more disturbingly, a laissez-faire attitude towards the 2003/2004 Championship campaign.

Whatever Ferguson's thinking, it is to be hoped that Arsenal continue to approach each competition - the Premiership, the FA Cup and the Champions League - with the respect they deserve in their pursuit of the treble so widely heralded by Manchester United fans in the spring of 1999 and ever since.

Football supporters, especially in the current climate of crippling admission prices, are entitled to see their teams adopt the same approach towards all three tournaments.

Meanwhile, let the Carling Cup, won by Middlesbrough this weekend in a final as refreshing as a can of the popular alcoholic beverage, continue to be used to give the Champions League clubs' stars a rest and provide a breeding ground for new signings or promising youngsters.

TKO was this week written by Dave Flett

Updated: 09:35 Tuesday, March 02, 2004