Last night Arsenal kept their second clean sheet against Man United this season, and kept our unbeaten League record since Christmas. Considering Ole Gunar’s team was also in a rich vein of form, and the Gunners were without Saka, Tierney and Aubameyang, it was an even better achievement.
The game was a cagey affair right from the start but United did have a couple of very good chances in the first half, but after Arteta’s half time talk we were creating many more chamces and could have won it ourseves.
Arteta was not too upset after the draw, although he was very pleased with our resilient performance, particularly in the second half. “I thought it was a fair result.” the boss told Arsenal.com. “I think both managers probably think they should have won it. I think it was a big game. I think we played face-to-face against each other. I think both teams wanted to win it. None of us scored a goal so it’s impossible to win. The fact we had three of our best players out probably has an impact [on the game] but I’m really happy with the players that played today and how we tried and most importantly how the game developed at the end. In the second half we were so dominant and had some big chances to win it.”
Arteta did surprise the Arsenal fans by taking off Martinelli at the break and replacing him with Willian, and Arteta was pleased with the players reaction. “Well, we made some changes with a few things that we had to fix to be much more efficient, to be much closer to them, to be more effective in our high press and the areas where we could regain the ball and then we had a better structure to attack. We were more of a threat and we stopped giving the ball back to the opponent when we won it and we had much space to run, which is something that against United can really punish you and in the first half we didn’t do that well enough.”
After looking at the team sheets, there were many fans that would have been happy with the draw, so at least we weren’t too disappointed, and we have kept our unbeaten run going.
But we just have to pick ourselves back up and get ready to go yet again on Tuesday when we travel to Wolves to try and pick up some more points…
Onwards and upwards!
Saka and Aubamayang would have won us that match, I so much miss Aubamayang positioning yesterday.
OT: Why is it that some arsenal fans never see anything good Xhaka does, even when he had a good game some will still find ways to criticize him.
Its natural I guess. Granit has been more disappointing over the years, although at the same time he has been successful with the Swiss team. Maybe the system was not properly suited to him until MA arrived. Granit after his redcard has been playing really well.
I also miss Aubameyang’s runs and positioning. A fully fit Marty can maybe reduce the impact of his absence.
Lenohappy, much the same question applies to MO – someone who you seemed to have a similar problem with as the Xhaka issue.
In the end, it’s all about opinions.
Ken1945 no ozil issue is totally different. One thing you cannot fault xhaka for is that he always give his all something Ozil rarely does, and I’m so sure if the coach tell xhaka that he’s not going to be part of his team again he will not stay just because of his fat salary like ozil did for more than 2 seasons.
Your argument was why some fans criticise a player, even when he plays well – nothing to do with his salary or giving his all.
As a reminder, we went on a nine game undefeated run with MO in the side, so his salary and not giving his all didn’t seem to affect MA choosing him did it?
Don’t think we dominated the second half, it swung back and forth through the match and both teams had chances and both defended well. Draw was fair.
Arsenal still have a good enough squad of players. What we need is a proper football manager. Just look what Rogers is doing with scrap.
You must be crazy or deluded to regard leicester with the likes of Vardy, Madison, Ndidi and Teilemans as scrap..
Players who are internationals and even retired(vardy).