Were Man United more clinical or more lucky than Arsenal?

Alex Iwobi has voiced his frustration with the weekend’s loss to Manchester United considering his side’s performance.

The Gunners lost to the Red Devils on Saturday evening no thanks to early mistakes which saw our side fall 2-0 down inside 11 minutes.

The rest of the match ended equal in goal return, but the game was very much one sided, with our boys nothing up over 30 shots, and David De Gea clocking up a whopping 14 saves.

Alex Iwobi has now declared his thoughts on the result, crediting Man United for being so clinical with their few chances on goal.

“I’m very frustrated. You could see the passion and the aggression we played with today but unfortunately it wasn’t to be and we just need to credit Manchester United,” Iwobi said.

“We were pushing to get the equaliser, had a few chances, but credit to their keeper, he made a few good saves.

“We didn’t take our chances and they capitalised on that and made it three, which basically killed the game.”

The Red Devils walked away with all three points, which feels unfair when considering the display and performance that our boys put in, and had any other goalkeeper in the world been between the sticks, you would have to think that we would have at least levelled the game.

It’s going to be a tough few days getting over the match, and Thursday’s Europa League dead rubber with Bate Borisov will only prove to be a slight distraction no matter what the result.

Should we consider ourselves unlucky or were Man United simply more clinical in front of goal?

Pat J

Tags Arsenal Iwobi Man United

12 Comments

  1. Man utd were lucky to survive. Chris smalling is a fool to say Miu’s masterstroke. We must accept that our defense are always nervous in big games for first 15 mins. Don’t know why they go blank in first half against top teams. I don’t understand why Arsene never say those guys to attack and play restless game in first half rather wait for their chance. Against top teams you must be very intelligent and deadly in the first half and kill the game by scoring 3 or more then relax and dominate possession in second half. If it’s not our day then we have to dig deep and score goals at death which we do quite regularly with small teams. I think Sanchez finishing in big games went down this year. Mentally looks like Sanchez is not 100% due to Chile been out of world cup and arsenal are not going to win major trophy this year. For me Sanchez is already gone for arsenal. No matter he plays at times well but I believe he is gone. Peter Cech says he is here to win trophies especially EPL but he didn’t for last three years. If he was so worried about winning EPL or champions league then he would have left us last year itself but the fact is that he would never get into first team in other big clubs. Why can’t Arsene adapt to new tricks and techniques. How pep revolutionized man city. They are new unbeatables. Every top club has young and talented goal keepers. We are the only club who has old goalie and 30+ CBs. No CDMs and no holding midfielder. Every top club first make their defense tight and hard but it’s opposite. Still an year to go for managerial changes. I wish it comes sooner rather later.

    1. I agree that Sanchez hasn’t got the form he had last year, but if Koscielny and Mustafi had not committed those errors we would have won. To lay these errors down at the manager’s feet is ridiculous. Had we won, there would be no way you could say we won in spite of the manager. This attitude has got to stop. We beat Guardiola and Mou last year and we can do so again if the fans don’t pull their regular routine of having hysterical meltdowns and start turning on themselves and the team. That’s exactly what our opponents want. Stop blaming the manager for individual player errors. The players know what is required and know they are to blame for such amateur mistakes. Fans are the 12th man on the team. Show some solidarity if you want to win more games, otherwise you might as well be part of the opposition.

  2. None of the above.We were not good enough ourselves and allowed them to get lucky and hence be clinical in front of goal.

  3. Truth be told man united had a game plan, and they delivered it, they went for early goals and parked the bus and relax waiting for counter attacks. While arsenal tried to play beautiful football to man united the job was done. I just wish we could be clinical enough to kill games, 30 shorts 1 goal only just conform we are not clinical, smaller teams have beaten man united. Possession without goals is nothing lets kill games early.

  4. Man U were extraordinarily lucky. Nobody would have been surprised to see the scoreline reversed or even a lop-sided win like 5-1. Not only were they lucky we hit the woodwork a few times, they were lucky the refs decided against awarding 2 clear cut penalties.

    Man U were also very clinical. We made grievous defensive errors and gifted them the ball, all they had to do was finish and they did. All we had to do was not make these errors, otherwise we were outplaying them, outclassing them, and dominating them as no team has done in the Premier League era.

    Arsenal have been looking quite solid at the back, very unfortunate to have slip-ups in a match like this. But mistakes are a part of football and even the best players make them. We have to regroup, respond and do our best not to repeat the same. Onward and upward!

  5. It was probably a bit of both. We need a decent central defender. We have known for years that Kos has a permanent injury problem, he’s well into his thirties, and he should be in the Mertesacker class, NOT playing 3 games a week, to neglect this in the transfer window was gross misconduct. We need to go out and get VVD – use the Oxlade-Chamberlain money in part payment, and let Liverpool know it.

  6. Did I see a different game? It seemed to me there was time for the lads to cover the mistakes of Kos and Mustafi. The whole team defended weakly as we always do.

    Man, U had a game plan to press us up high and force us into mistakes and since we didn’t start the game fully concentrated their game plan worked and like a big team (we have, to be honest here) they put their chances away with skill and didn’t choke particularly on the 2nd and 3rd. I don’t think they would have scored the first with Ospina in goal.

    We are poor in front of goal. Against Burnley, we had 12 shots and still needed a penalty to score 1 goal. To me, Man U deserved the win because we didn’t play from the whistle and they killed us for it. You can not start playing after 15 minutes against a Mourinho team and expect to win neither can you give them a two-goal lead.

  7. We were unlucky that the first goal went through both players legs. If anyone thinks he meant that then you’re asking the wrong people. He made sure to hit it on target and he got lucky with it, Cech wouldn’t have seen it in time to react or adjust, but Monreal could’ve been quicker in seeing the danger in the first place. The mistakes gifted them opportunities near our goal and put us on the back foot, but they still had to beat our players and they done that with too much ease. I don’t understand how casually awful we were at the back, it’s almost like we have a self destruct. Were Manu lucky, I think their fans would say that they were lucky with how we were s**t. I mean we’re talking about doing something as simple as not giving the ball away when you’re under little pressure/ no pressure and are just outside your area. The Mustafi one is very hard to swallow, you’d think he threw the game or took a pay off only we know that that is definitely not gonna happen as they don’t need the money anymore. But even after that mistake we let a utd player turn us inside our own box. No it wasn’t luck, it was a mixture of us being careless and naive whilst our opponents knew before the game how important it is to put chances away when they come.

    1. well said. we can not possibly say we had a quality performance. At best IMO we can say we had a positive response after falling behind 2-0. But it would have been greater to have a quality response after falling behind 1-0 and even better to start the game in a professional manner and not falling behind at all.

  8. Luck have nothing to do with a terrible performance of our defenders witch I thing is due to mental and physical weakness.Two very important qualities witch Arsenal is been lacking for many years and emerge every time that we confront a well prepare tactically and physical team.
    The solution? :1)Money to buy quality players.(Kroenke!!!!!!)
    2)Good coaching.(??????)
    3)VAR to help bad referees.

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