There’s two things you absolutely cannot do in life:
- Look a gift horse in the mouth
- Scoff at three points at Old Trafford
There’s plenty of time for us to all look at the performance, the individual clunkiness of some of the players and the fact that this felt like a very ‘Un-Arteta’-like Arsenal performance, but what we got yesterday was what we came for, which was that first win of the season at a ground in which we have traditionally struggled at. Indeed, I’d even said it yesterday morning having read about it on Opta Analyst – we don’t normally win there and had two wins from the previous 18. Now it’s three in 19 and whilst Mikel Arteta was quick to admit that we weren’t at our best on the day, he was also right to praise the spirit of the team, because we held on and kept United at arms length when our main game was off on the day.
It kicked off with the side that I predicted and Gyokeres and Calafiori started instead of Kai and MLS. Given that it was Riccardo at the back post to stoop-header the ball in to put us ahead within the opening 15 minutes, clearly that was the right call, but we can point to a fair ol’ slice of luck on it because the flapping from their ‘keeper for the in-swinging corner was real schoolboy stuff. We all know Onana has a clanger in him, but the guy who they had in between the sticks yesterday looked just as clown-like with that situation and whilst the narrative instantly became ‘Set Piece again ole ole’ from the away fans and pundits, the reality is that United should have dealt with it. I’ve seen a few United fans claiming foul for Saliba on the ‘keeper but I’m not having that; you can’t call foul on that on and then say that Zubimendi wasn’t impeded in the same movement by Cunha inside the box. Equally, De Ligt did the same thing with Raya up the other end, but the only difference was our ‘keeper got a solid punch on it.
So we’re 1-0 in the early stages and I’ll be honest, I thought we would go on to dominate and control the game, but it never really happened. What I would have expected to happen was that United would have to abandon any hopes of a deep low block and transition-counter game on us, because we were ahead and could afford to get in to our shape. And at times I thought there was space for us to counter on them when they were venturing forward. But nothing seemed to come off for those Arsenal players. There was a series of poor decision-making passes in the United half and counter after counter broke down before it’d even got started. It was, by Arteta’s admission, a performance littered with mistakes and when they get back to London Colney this week and do the video analysis, there won’t be many outfield players who will come out of it with too much credit I don’t think. Maybe the defence can get a few plaudits, but in an attacking sense we really didn’t click. Saka was really quiet. Martinelli made some pretty poor choices and at a time in which we’re all wanting him to step up now he has more competition in Madueke, we didn’t see enough from the Brazilian. And Gyokeres was starved of pretty much any service whatsoever. There will be rival fans this morning happy to stick the boot in, but the way the game played out meant that he was cutting a very frustrating figure and was off on 60 minutes for Havertz. To be fair, Kai also struggled, so I don’t think we can put much down to Gyokeres’ first competitive match.
It was overall a very weird performance. I have a few mates on WhatsApp groups saying how they hadn’t seen us play this bad in terms of performance for years. It’s weird saying it when you’ve won, but we’re used to dominating the ball, the chance creation, the territory, etc, but yesterday we had none of that. United had more possession, they had more possession in the middle half, they almost matched us on duels, they had a better duel success rate, they won more of their aerial duels, they completed way more passes than us (475 to our 294), they had a better passing accuracy, a ton more shots, more key passes, etc. I could go on and on but in pretty much every metric we were second best. Dare I say it, but it felt more like an Unai Emery-style Arsenal performance, than a Mikel Arteta one.
And yet, here we stand, with three points and the season up and running. We have come to one of the more difficult places in the land and got ourselves going. If we can get a win at home to Leeds and put in a better performance than yesterday next weekend, we’ll head to Anfield with confidence and that will be essential. We’ve shown our quality in defence and how we are hard to break down and we’ve shown that, as always, we will once again be a threat from set pieces. During pre season we looked shaky at the back, but the game faces went on yesterday and we knew that we were better than Man United and could see out a game with another clean sheet. And you can’t complain too much about that.
Arteta will have them on the training ground now this week and they’ll take a look at things that can be done differently in attack and I think we’ll see a very different performance from the boys next weekend. At least I hope we will.
That’ll do for me for today, but for a little bit of extra Arsenal-related content for you if you fancy it, Amanda and James did a post-match review straight after the game on the Same Old Arsenal pod which you can watch here.
Back tomorrow.
I think our defense and goalkeeper were A+ in this game — a major positive. In past visits to Old Trafford, even with better teams and performances, we’ve come back empty-handed. In any other year, we might have lost or been lucky to get a draw. This win shows how resilient we are defensively — something to celebrate and be proud of, not sneer at!
As for the midfield and attacking players — clearly, Zubi needs time to adjust to the pace of the league and the officiating, especially when he doesn’t even get a foul after being elbowed in the face. As Arteta alluded to, Gyökeres still needs to learn our pressing system, and our wingers and midfielders need to adapt to playing with a true centre-forward who stays in the box to finish chances, rather than dropping deep to create them. Our other star players looked rusty too — but that’s understandable and should improve with time. I’m confident we’ll be miles better against Leeds.”
The big immediate test is Liverpool — a game that’s probably come too soon for us, before our new signings have had time to gel. One thing to note, though, is how poor Gyökeres was in his hold-up play, something Havertz improved immediately. If we’re planning to bypass the midfield with direct balls from the goalkeeper to the centre-forward, then Havertz should start until Gyökeres adapts to the physicality of the Premier League.
Yes, felt very much like an unai emery Arsenal performance. Declan Rice had a very poor game in my opinion, lots of misplaced passes, it felt to me like he didn’t understand his role and left Zubimendi exposed too often. White and Gykores looked undercooked fitness wise. However the starting line up was what I hoped for, but in hindsight I would have started Kai and brought big Vic on 2nd half. One encouraging thing is the quality now of our bench, very good players as options, and we didn’t have G.Jesus, Tross, Kiwior, Nelson etc there either, so plenty of talent to call on (or trade).