Are Arsenal and Manchester United doomed now that Cesc Fabregas and Wayne Rooney are injured?

Chelsea must have enjoyed watching mid-week football, as their two Premier League title challengers, Arsenal and Manchester United, came out of their European matches with their respective most important players (Cesc Fabregas and Wayne Rooney) injured. I loved watching the drama unfold every minute throughout the Arsenal-Barça match at the Emirates, a 2-2 result is something the Gunners should be very proud of! It could have been 10-2 if it were not for the heroic goalkeeping from Manuel Almunia. I don’t think I can do justice to the match with a concise recap, but essentially Theo Walcott and Cesc Fabregas scored goals late in the second half after Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored a brace in the second half as well. But the match had so much more to it then that. Barcelona had twelve shots in the first half-hour of the match, and despite being out-possessed 65%-35% Arsenal managed to fight back to draw Pep Guardiola’s European Champions. Carlos Puyol was red carded for kicking Cesc Fabregas, giving away the penalty that led to Cesc’s equalizer in the process. Cesc injured himself while converting the penalty, and the early rumours are that the Spaniard may have actually broken his leg. Anyway, I could talk all day about the beautiful game played by the masters of beautiful football, but I’ll post the highlights below so you can see the drama that unfolded over the 90 minutes in North London.

Anyway, back to my question. The Premier League is definitely still the priority for United and Arsenal, so did these injuries (Wayne Rooney is supposedly out with an ankle sprain for 2-4 weeks) hand Carlo Ancelotti’s Chelsea this year’s Premier League title? Do Manchester United and Arsenal stand a chance to progress in the Champions League without their world-class leaders? And who means more to their respective club: Fabregas or Rooney?