Following the Manchester United way may aid us in beating Man-City by Lagos Gooner
Happy new week everybody. Hope we enjoyed the weekend Premiership games? Apart from the Arsenal versus West Ham game, I also watched the Manchester derby live! I watched it because I wanted to see what special thing Manchester United will do to win the game. Somehow, I knew Manchester United was going to win based on their impressive records against the big teams this season, I just didn’t how they were going to do it; therefore, I had to watch the game live.
So, what did Manchester United do to beat Manchester City? These are the three things I observed about their game against the Citizens.
Manchester United began the game on the attack: Let us face it, Man City are used to bullying teams from the first minute of a game but against Manchester United, they didn’t have it easy for the first 20 minutes or so. The Red Devils came to that game with one intention; and that is to score an early goal, which they did. If Arsenal wants to take away a point or three points from this match, they should make sure they put the Citizens under pressure. When you put them under pressure, they would find it difficult playing their game as they will be faced with the only option of defending right from the first minute. Man City would also be under so much pressure and it may cost them to lose balls in sensitive areas.
Manchester United caused troubles with their set pieces: Who noticed that whenever United had a free kick close to the penalty box or whenever they played a corner kick, they always troubled the Man City’s defence? Yes, big teams rely on set pieces these days to score goals. My darling Arsenal does not have a good free kick specialist who can score from free kicks. Apart from not having a free kick specialist, Arsenal does not have an effective way of playing and scoring from an indirect free kick. Manchester United’s first goal came from an indirect free kick! We should really be working on our set piece delivering, as we hardly score goals from free kicks.
Manchester United did not give the Citizens breathing space: it was obvious Ole knew that if he allowed Man City hold possession of the ball for too long, they would cause damage with it. Whenever United lost the ball, they did everything possible to win it back. They man marked the Citizens and this caused them into making silly mistakes like the one that gave the Red Devil’s their second goal. If Arsenal can also man mark Man City, I can say we will score goals.
All right fellas; these are what I feel we should do against Man City to achieve a good result.
What do you guys think? We are Arsenal and we are proud.
Sylvester Kwentua
Great insight Kwentua.
I would also like to see us putting in the extra work in defending crosses as I noticed City crossed quite a lot yesterday. Very uncharacteristic of them.
I am also counting on Mikel Arteta to bring something special to the table, having spent 3 years at the club before joining us. It will be up to the players to listen very well and take his instructions in fine detail.
We should take a cautious approach to this game. City are wounded and will be playing at home.
I think the likes of Martinelli and Willock should play this game given their youth and energy. I don’t think we will be lacking in space at the Etihad.
It will be an open game and we will get our chances, just a matter of taking them.
I hope KDB is still out. That man is a monster and will surely cause havoc if he’s in.
I dont think our game plan should be based on what Man Utd. did or did not do. We must devise our own gameplan and according to the situation in the game be flexible to make certain changes to the plan. We should play our own way and not try to imitate other teams because each team has its own set of strengths and weaknesses. Up the Gunners!
Man Utd won the match because of the incompetence of the Man City goalkeeper.They played a counter attacking game and relied on the pace of Martial and James on the break to attack the weak links in the opposition defence namely Otamendi and Shinchenko.Arsenal should attempt to do the same the only problem being that we lack pace at the back to cope with the likes of Sterling, Jesus and Marezh .Wan Bissaca was immense for Man Utd but unfortunately we do not have a comparable player unless Arteta decides to deploy AMN in that position.If we can take a point from City we will have done well.
So far so good with the Arsenal team but against ManCity on Wednesday, Arteta’s selection will determine the result of the match. He needs to use Niles at the right full back position to counter intrusions from that side. Also, Martinelli should be included in the starting 11 while Lacazette should come in later.