Fighting Arsenal take a good point at Old Trafford by Konstantin Mitov
Hello lovely Arsenal people! It’s a good time to be an Arsenal fan. We went to Old Trafford after a huge win vs Tottenham and for the first time in ages put a performance that was worthy of all three points!
While history remembers only the results, we were really unfortunate not to win. We took the lead twice and had it for less than 5 minutes combined due to lack of concentration, I would say, because defensively I thought we didn’t allow them any clear chances.
Another thing that didn’t go our way was injuries. Holding was carried off the pitch and Ramsey is unclear how long will be off after being subbed at halftime. And I must say the ref was shocking! Their first goal was offside, but it was sad that we didn’t react to the ball, because we had bodies in the box.
Then at our second goal, Rojo should have been sent off, because had the ball not found the net, it should’ve been a clear penalty as Lacca was just taken out from behind which is a yellow card anywhere on the pitch.
Unfortunately we completely lost concentration again and allowed a straight away equaliser, but afterwards we missed two sitters to take the lead again. Finally, Fellaini probably missed his old haircut and tried to take it from Guendouzi by pulling his hair which again got missed by the ref and it could’ve been a red there.
Add to the fact we played a much more physically demanding game than them in the weekend and that they had an extra day to rest, I’m very happy with the performance. We went there to win and did our best to do so. I thought Guendouzi was superb! I thought we’d really miss Xhaka, but Matteo was excellent.
Lacca from the bench was also superb once more, and Unai Emery again managed to tweak it so we come out stronger in the second half. He resisted the temptation to play both his best strikers, so that we can change the game and it worked. The fact that we didn’t lose after losing the lead was also important. Under Wenger I really doubt that we would have gotten anything out of the game had it gone the way it did.
It hurts that this was yet another match where we failed to take control of the game, but Unai is always the first man to admit it and I love it. His positive attitude is electric. In his post match interview he talked about how Kolasinac was down due to his error, and he said to him that there were lots of positives and he should just work on the mistake.
Interesting, but not surprising was the fact we left Ozil out again due to a “back spasm” or as I would call it a coaching injury. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he makes a miraculous recovery for Huddersfield. Some injuries have piled up on us and we need bodies coming back to make it through a very packed December.
Our fixture list is now quite favourable for us and we should focus on getting a good recovery for Saturday as it’s a must-win game for us. Chelsea’s shock defeat to Wolves and the fact they are playing Man City next means we can go back to the top four with a win.
That’s me done for today. See you after the weekend game, hopefully with 3 more points in the bag!
Konstantin