Arsenal went to Old Trafford today hoping to end a 10 year wait for a Premier League win away at Old Trafford and we had a great chance to do so against a Manchester United side weakened significantly by the absence of key players like Ibrahimovic, Bailly, Smalling and Fellaini.
Once again, however, Arsenal did not turn up and made a por United side look like world beaters as we gave them all the space and time they needed to settle into and then dominate the game, while offering very little ourselves in terms of attacking threat and creative football.
It really does seem to be a mental block for us and it was almost a carbon copy of the awful performance we produced at OLd Trafford last season. Even with all this it was looking as though we would get at least a point as our defence and Petr Cech were the strongest part of our side but they were eventually breached in the second half as the relentless pressure paid off for the home team and Juan Mata swept home a cross from the right.
THe fightback never looked like materialising even though Wenger turned to Giroud and the Ox but the big Frenchman eventually popped up and launched himself through the air to power home a cross from the Ox. Maybe we did not deserve it but it was a very welcome point on the day.
Awful performance. Ramsey needs to be shown the door. What a liability
Weakest united defence in years and we dont do anything.
Thank you Giroud. No matter what haters say you are one of the best players we have.
Ramsey is our worst player I wish he had stayed injured
wenger got it wrong today,
didnt adapt to man us game plan, could have been 4-0
midfield was spent force, nothing done to change it
team selection tactics
subs were late
elneny should been off way earlier
ramsey yet again poor
mourinho was there for the taking today but no yet again we bottled it, wengers done with mourinho. no contest jose wins
jenko well done showed hope with todays game
thank u cech
We as fans have to get this idea out our thick skulls….. A game is never ‘there for the taking’ unless the other team is playing complete garbage or you already in the lead them u let it go. Regardless of what you think Mourinho gave then a game plan and the executed compared to us. 17 games unbeaten isn’t a fluke
The moment Ramsey got fit again I knew Wenger would shift people around to fit him in the starting 11.
Ramsey certainly shouldn’t have played on wing. He should have been played alongside Coq centrally. I would have played Gibbs as L. midfield with Ox coming on.
No Elneny as starter.
Get Debuchy fit or buy another RB. Jenko looks and plays like a big mad horse.
Lol
Ramsey starting is not going to get us too many trophies, that has been said 1000 times in the past but as long as Wenger doesn’t see it we will continue to fail.
I think Wenger and team are afraid of Mourinho. You can not play to win with one winger (Theo), and you can not win with Wenger.
This is the same Arsenal we have seen fail for the past 10+ years. Can’t play our best games when it matters.
Deeply frustrating. Another November down the shitter.
Elneny and Ramsey in the same team and you expect anything good? We were too slow and they were the reason.
Elneny is done, he offers nothing to this team. Ramsey on the wing as well.
Giroud must start from now on. And we need a midfielder in January, we can’t rely on one man to be fit whole season (Santi).
What s***e performance. One shot on target, one goal. Anyways, we have lost 4 points in the last 2 matches, this needs a fix.
Certainly a worry that we seem such a different team without Santi. We can’t go into these games with two DMs. Xhaka hasn’t been overly impressive but he has to play when Santi isn’t available, he has a pass that can unlock any defence.
Putting aside Ramsey’s absolutely shocking game, even when he is at his best he doesn’t have the discipline to play the deep lying pass master. Give Ozil (who was also poor) the occasional rest and let Ramsey play that role – if he can recapture his Euro form the he’s not a bad back-up at number 10.
@Trudeau,
Preach it mate, preach! Özil’s been poor in the past few games, yes.
I would say play him against PSG but bench him for Bournemouth if he’s still poor. I would give a start for Giroud and OX.
Ramsey can’t play centrally for this team. Has displayed multiple times that he does not have the technical ability or close control to do it. We aren’t average Wales and this isn’t a technically average European tournament.
Hurts us wide and can’t do what santi can do as the cm. Ha shown us multiple times he can’t do the job as a 10.
Needs to be a super sub or sold.
Wenger what is wrong with you playing Ramsey all the time??
The guy slows down the pace of the game. Since he came back from injury can t you see that we are in trouble??
What is going on with you tow??
bravo Girou
I think that may be one of the most awful and disappointing performances I have seen Arsenal produce. The tactics were absolutely shocking. Elneny and Ramsey should not have been on the pitch at all in their respective positions. Even the players though, they didn’t seem to want it nearly as much as Utd did, which is a theme for some reason (that I’ve noticed historically in this fixture). Really really hope Wenger has a good think about this and the mistakes made and hopefully it is not repeated.
What are Elneny’s attributes as a midfielder?
– he’s slow
– doesn’t intercept
– doesn’t tackle
– passes a lot sideways or back
– has a great shot but never gets in the position to shoot
What is his role? I’ve been trying to figure this out for 10 months now, ever since he came. I don’t want to bash on him, he is what he is, but this is just my opinion that he isn’t up for it in the starting XI for Arsenal FC.
Agree he was rubbish today
Stupid stupid old man wenger. Y do u insist on playing Sanchez as striker when it’s clearly visible that it DOES NOT WORK. N y oh y can’t you make a sub early when the game calls for it instead of waiting for a goal to show the problem. N stop playing Walcott ffs. I give up
In the last 15 years in attack; worst passing, worst gameplay, worst tactics. Best back line.
Well done chamberlain & back line n Giroud for saving ur ass for the 47th time.
LOL.
Sanchez was the correct choice, since we were setup for counter attacking which does not work with Giroud.
We were playing away from home so it was the correct decision. Only question is RAMSEY
And we were overrun in midfield so our counter attacks were amateur at best. Someone feed HP pots to Santi
No, the question is Ramsey on the WING
I doubt he can control the midfield. He has only shown us in that one season that he can score goals. Midfield is much more than that. I doubt his abilities.
Lol lol it wasent a choice. It’s a standard for every game. He didn’t produce anything besides some good defensive work, giroud did. N to be fair Its not his fault.
I’m not too unhappy. We got a draw away at Manchester United which at then end of the day is a good result. Our attack today was poor though. As long as we keep beating the mid and lower table teams and get draws away to the big ones, we should be okay. Key for this part of the season is to not be too far off the top.
Draw at Old Trafford would be a good result, however we have to remember our lackluster performance at HOME against Spuds, which was disgraceful.
We need to pounce back against PSG and continue by dismantling Bournemouth.
My thoughts exactly ,don’t exactly know what folks here were expecting(a walk in the park?)come on guys we were at old Trafford and not at our best yet we snatched a point.good enough for me,now unto the next games ,if we can win the next three ,we will be fine.off topic here.bandage on Sanchez’s thigh scares me but can we afford to rest him for PSG clash?
You were never off topic,
I was thinking the same thing, he needs an off training and a bench against PSG I think.
Will take the draw. AWESOME AWESOME!!
Olivier just proving further he is a top class substitute. LOVE HIM!!
However, the question remains. Ramsey.
wengers plan failed, his aim was to use zsanchez to break in the counter, which xplains why Coq and elneny played. At the end of the day, Giroud saved us again, cant blame Ramsey he was played out of position.
but Elneny…. hes not Arsenal material, he shouldnt be playing if Coq plays. Wjat
Not looking like a title winning team lately…
Ramsey back for the last two prem games, + no sabti = dropped points
I want to congratulate the adopted son on an outstanding performance. Really amazing back passes, missed passes and lost duels. Keep up the good work, adopted son, it’s good to see you back. I was starting to miss the old Arsenal, thank you for bringing it back.
Pappa Wenger, thanks for subbing the players in the 70th minute, we need the old Wenger back. Lets grab that fourth place by the pussy.
hahahahaha… grab it by the pussy.
Regarding the tactics, except for being overrun in midfield, we were clearly trying to absorb the pressure from United and we did that well. Our attack suffered because we lacked that converter in Cazorla who could make the change from defense to attack more fluid.
ALL HAIL CAZORLA
AND WHY DOES RAMSEY START? WHY BRO, WENGER?
A theory:
You cannot deal with the giant in GIROUD when he comes on as a sub especially when you are tired at the end. DID YOU SEE THAT HEADER?
Ramsey is so useless. We have no attack when he plays on the wing what so ever. It was easy for their defense to focus only on Wallcott’s side. You can see 2-3 defenders in front of Wallcott every time he touches the ball. Having proper wingers on both franks do spread the field much better.
Look when the substitutions came on, a proper wingers on both sides, BOOM, a delicious cross from the OX and a great goal from Giroud!
Jankinson looks solid, he improved alot over the years.
Eleney looks very shaky under pressure, this is not Arsenal quality, he need to improve big time.
Ozil is the only person out of our starting front 4 that can get any pass going on in their final third. Ramsey need to be played centrally…
Good assessment on Jenkinson. People here seem to think that we need someone like Philip Lahm as our SECOND CHOICE RB, which is ridiculous.
Jenkinson is adept to be second choice. He won’t displace Bellerin, but he can deputize him when he’s not available. We didn’t concede today because of Jenkinson nor were we even close to concede because of his performance.
Debuchy is done with Arsenal.
Nah, he’s a liability. Get rid.
Yea right ,get rid of him and replace him with who ?which of your dream right backs will settle for a place on the bench?
Matt Lowton, Lustig from Celtic, Tavernier from Rangers, must be a host of foreign players out there who don’t panic when the ball comes near them.
Yea yea I guess my cousin luposhakta from our local team too will provide better cover than jenco
He;s a good player…
Just trolling you mate,don’t watch that much Scottish premier league as am sure many guys here don’t,so I wouldn’t know the names you mentioned. My point is if we are going to judge based on today’s game, jenko was solid defensively ,neutralized all the threat from tricky martial.
Yeah, I was saying your cousin would be better than Jenks.
He seriously worries me, looks like a disaster about to happen. Have NEVER seen him play any good even for West Ham.
We must be able to find some steady eddie RB to bring in when Hector unfit.
He was very strong defensively but didn’t offer much going forward
A good result for a poor performance, we clearly setup the team to be defensively stable and take something away from the game. If we dont lose the big games away from home this season then we will be right up there come the end of the season. Not happy with ramsey, not happy with the performance but will definitely take the result. Onwards and upwards.
Spot on mate
“The first Arsenal sub to score at old traford”
Giroooooood!
Fair result considering the poor performance th…
He is going to be a legendary substitute.
Never should be a sub.
Dull first half….i noticed we tend not to posses the ball well after an international break..
I saw some fans here with over confidence comment before the game. I always knew it’s gonna be tough because we haven’t won at Old Trafford in a while and Mourinho gets the better of Wenger…
I thought the tactics was wrong. Ramsey, oh Ramsey.. Elneny didn’t offer much. Giroud might not be world class but we still need him. Thanks Giroud,nice assist Ox. Fair result.
Psg next….
Iwobi should take back his place. Ramsey back to bench. Simple.
And i dont understand why everyone is moaning, do you think leicester had all perfect performances on their way to the title last year? They made a habit of being hard to beat, even away from home and they only lost 3 matches the entire season. Im liking the resilience we are showing, even in tough away games like trafford. Yes, we didnt go top of the table…again, but the important thing is that we are within touching distance come April/May. Get behind the team people. #COYG
We were set up to counter but we never got the fluidity to do that all game. Really missed cazorla through the middle. Wenger has been in love with idea of playing a midfielder on the wings but everyone is not Robert Pires. Ramsey should only be used as a backup to Cazorla in the box to box role and no where else. We had Elneny, Coquelin in the middle and Ramsey also drifting inside leading to the age old problem of us being too narrow. I think we should go back to having Iwobi on the wings. Giroud and Chamberlain should be used as impact substitutes.
point total is going to be higher this year though to win title. And the usual competitors aren’t trash like last year… Best to forget last season all together because it doesn’t make us look pretty either. If Spurs were 3 points last game then nobody would care about this result, but we’re quickly falling behind yet again just like every November. Arsenal are very prone to falling back into our usual patterns (dropping out of title race around Feb/March for example) It’s better to keep up with the pack than pray for other teams to stumble. Our form is starting to dip, and AW is converting back to his nonsensical selections. Seriously, Ramsey on the wing?
Seriously I’m for switching Sanchez back on the left and start Giroud up top at least until Perez and or Welbeck comes back. Monreal looks so average with no support, it was so easy for Valencia. We need a Cazorla replacement or heir as soon as the next window opens. We need another winger especially with Gnabry sold and Campbell on loan again. I would go as far as testing PSG for Aurier in the summer, because with Bellerin out there’s a big gap in that position and big teams shouldn’t have that problem. Today reminded me why I don’t rate Ramsey and Walcott, there are way better out there like Dybala and Veratti for example. I’ll take the point though but we didn’t show up and were saved by Giroud.
I couldn’t blame Walcott. His missus is in labour so his mind was prolly elsewhere
Im sick. OG is the best header of the ball in the league. That is the way to score against tough defenders. All I hear on here is he makes our attack slow. You need speed on the wings yes but to have that weapon just sitting there game after game. I’m sick of it. You know what? from the look on OG’s face after he scored he looks like he is sick of it too.
From the tactical point of view I felt Wenger got it slightly(trying to keep my cool)wrong. You realize mats kept coming infield to provide an extra man in the middle of the wing allowing Valencia to exploit the space. I think a winger in that (Lw) position would have kept Valencia in check . Also Walcott didn’t exploit the darmian early yellow to great effect. The subs came in a bit late but on a positive the made the desired impact. We got a point too so YIPEEE! *sarcarsm*
Incredibly lucky to get a point, abysmal team performance. Utd looked fluid and hungry, we looked nervous and disjointed.
Elneny paired with Coq doesn’t work, we needed some dynamism in the centre today and also much better ball control.
Sanchez was forced to come far too deep for the entirety of the match, can’t blame him too much.
Why is no-one discussing Ozil? He’s never going to shake criticism if he goes missing like that, I can remember about 5 proper touches from him the entire game. Make all the excuses you want but a ‘match winner’ needs to do more.
Walcott offered nothing going forward, looked nervous. Giroud does what he does and is a valuable asset, Ox as well is the same, despite poor decision making usually.
I can’t work out Xhaka, he had all these stats touted from Bundesliga yet he seems to misplace a lot of passes and collects a card no matter how little time he is on the pitch.
Knee-jerk emotional reaction but we WILL get found out if we continue to play like that in big games.
COYG
Xhaka is a better player when set up to do counter attack. It would be better if he has both Sanchez and Giroud upfront, so he can have option to drop it short in front of giroud or for the runner in Sanchez.
If he gets an understanding of who runs off the ball when he is in possession he will become a key player. With Long ball you have to build trust that someone will run in a certain direction behind a defence or sometimes drop in front of the defence.
When does Ozil come back from holiday? He was invisible today.
Worst player ON the ball was Ramsey. Chris Coleman must’ve been high when he said Ramsey can play for any team in the world.
Sorry but Walcott was on purple patch, it is finished now.
Sanchez I can understand today, travelled the furthest and carrying injury but that guy needs to stay upfront CF, looked more dangerous in wing late in last 5 than entire 85 before it.
If Ozil and Sanchez are both off the game, Arsenal won’t do much. Most of the attacking players only play good when either one or both of them are playing good. It was the same against Tottenham, both didn’t turn up, did anyone else do? This is why Cazorla is important. Doesn’t score as many like previously but still gets the ball moving forward and create chances.
Despite the draw, I still like the formation, where Sanchez was the central forward/ attacking midfielder. We did not dominate, because most of our players look tired. I think:
– Ramsey is not used to play in the left wing position, and this match is not the right time for such experiment. I know Wenger wanted to protect Monreal, by putting Ramsey there, but Ramsey is just not a left winger currently.
– Sanchez looked not 100% fit. He did not have his usual energy.
– Monreal was slow and looked jaded today. Maybe because of the international match? Then Wenger should have used Gibbs instead. Faster and more energetic.
– Coquelin will work better with Cazorla. Cazorla’s close control and creativity in the midfield will make us dominate the midfield. Xhaka, Ozil and Elneny are simply not in his league currently. I know Ozil’s fans will hate me for this, but this is the truth. See how Cazorla can bring difference to our ball possession, interceptions and the number of key passes.
– The plan B will usually work. We are lucky to have Giroud as our super sub. He may not be always good as the first team player, but he is one of the players that can make difference from the bench. Hopefully we keep him next season.
Awful performance but will take the point. Giroud and the OX have certainly earned a start for the next game.
Now non-believers can put your pitchforks back in the shed. Tactics wise Wenger chose well, we needed to absorb the pressure and defend above anything. The team performance has been shocking more than anything because our attack was piss poor. I see many people complain about Ramsey but for this game he was the right choice because he helped make life more difficult for Valencia. If Iwobi had started you’d expect that left hand side to be more of a threat to us.
We definitely miss Santi and Xhakha should have started instead of El-nino but at the end of the day i ll take the draw.
Mesut ozil.. good player but the most overrated player in our team. I think we fans think too much of him because he is just too inconsistent to be this incredible player we think he is. Some fans probably believe he is really better than Zidane. I didn’t see him today at all, disappeared completely. Thank you Giroud and chamberlain for the point.
there are 2 reasons as to why we will still drop more points in our coming games: 1.Santi’s injury for which we have no replacement or AW just overlooks this. 2:Rambo’s return whch gives AW the go to bench 2 natural wingers just to acomodate him.
Is there any doubt that Giroud is gold as super sub???
Don’t care about the result as much as I do that again, like against Spurs, we don’t bring our A game.
Why do we always look more tired than the other team? Spurs looked fitter despite having played a day later in the CL. Today we looked jaded again. Does it have to do with our training methods? Is this related to why we seem to get so many injuries?
If we won v Tottenham and drawed today it would’ve been good. We already dropped 7 points from 18 at home. As you know winning the title requires good home form. This is the first cluster of hard games and we took 2/6. Next is PSG, different competition if we draw that one, I have to write Arsenal chances of winning the title. I need a convincing win as well v PSG.
We have to play both Giroud and Sanchez upfront otherwise it is too predictable. Actually I think we will score more goals with two strikers.
In the end we stole that game, absolute day light robbery. My question is, why drop Iwobi for Ramsay who offers nothing?
Guys. We as fans we think Wenger set the team for counter. It wasnt. When i saw defensive minded midfield all over i knew wenger was looking for a draw. Iwobi or ox could have started. Especially ox n walcot for speed upfron. How do you expect to counter attack with volkwagen beetle mid field. Who, could run with the ball foward. Ozil n sanchez n walcot. Rambo was suppose to play along either xhaka or lecoq with iwobi or ok advance. Remember first defence is attack. AW GOT WHAT HE PLANNED FOR A DRAW