Man Utd v Arsenal review – Winner gives Danny a dream return to Old Trafford

A dream return to his former club for Danny Welbeck who scored an excellent second goal for Arsenal to give us a 2-1 win, breaking the Old Trafford hoodoo and putting us into an FA cup semi-final.

Both Arsenal and Manchester United started with real intent at Old Trafford. Alexis Sanchez was getting some joy against their right back Valencia and had an early shot when he cut inside and nearly created panic. But Hector Bellerin picked up an early booking and United were also getting some joy down the flanks, with a couple of free kicks and corners giving us problems.

Fellaini nearly got free in the box after 14 minutes but lost control at the key moment. The tempo was high and both teams were pressing hard without the ball, even Ozil, which also meant that the passing from both was not as accurate. In the 20th minute we left Fellaini with too much space in the box again but his pull back for Young was just too heavy.

Chamberlain then blew a good opportunity for Arsenal and then had another great burst stopped by Rojo, who should have been booked like Bellerin was for a similar tackle. Then in the 25th minute, just after a brilliant bit of defending by Koscielny, we got the opening goal with a great finish by Monreal after great work by Chamberlain.

But the lead lasted just a few minutes as we failed to pick up Rooney and allowed him a free header from Di Maria’s cross. Way too easy. Welbeck had a half decent penalty claim denied and his own header saved shortly after. Szczesny got away with a fumbling another Di Maria cross but it was bit worrying.

It was fast and furious stuff as the half wore on and both teams were creating chances. Shezzer saved at the near post after Di Maria broke free and then De Gea smothered a Cazorla free kick just before the break which came with no more goals. Van Gaal made two changes at halftime, with Jones and Carrick replacing Shaw and Herrera to suggest he wanted more solidity at the back and more control in midfield.

They were bossing possession as well before Arsenal were forced into ouw own change as the Ox pulled a hamstring and Ramsey came on. We soon got our first good chance of the half but a deflection tok tyhe sting from Alexis’ shot. Ramsey made a difference in winning the midfield battle and Arsenal were the team pressing more.

Fellaini and Young saw yellow and then Monreal did just enough to make Di Maria shoot wide. But Danny Welbeck made no mistake when he pounced on a back pass, beat De Gea and fired in on the hour mark to get his dream return to his former club.

United pushed hard to get another quick reply and they wanted a second yellow for Bellerin for a tackle so Wenger wisely replaced him with Chambers. The Gunners looked determined to hold firm this time though, working hard and biting into tackles as we did at Man City. And we still looked dangerous when we got the ball and went looking for a third and killer goal.

Giroud came on with around 15 minutes left and was involved at the start of a great move which ended in Cazorla being denied by a fantastic De Gea save. Then Di Maria got a second yellow for a bad reaction and it looked like being our night. Maybe it was nerves but we got a bit sloppy after that when we should have been making the extra man count. Arsenal fans were holding our breath as the whistle went after Januzaj claimed a foul in the box but it was a dive and he was rightly booked.

United were lumping it up to Fellaini and trying for the second ball and we had five minutes of stoppage time to endure although Ozil or Sanchez should have scored with a minute left. It didn’t matter though as Arsenal recorded a rare and vital win over the old enemy. Youuuuu Gunners!!

VIDEO – Danny Welbeck’s winning goal at Old Trafford

Tags Monreal Rooney welbeck

240 Comments

  1. just saw CR7 posted “congratulations maestro” on Ozils FB page, not a Madrid fan, but classy,

    1. yeah
      glad the semis are played at Wembley….imagine playing at Bradford(should they beat Reading), that’s not a football pitch-more like an off-road track…injuries galore.

  2. “Oft have I brooded on defeat and pain,
    The pathos of the stupid, stumbling throng.
    These I ignore to-day and only long
    To pour my soul forth in one trumpet strain,
    One clear, grief-shattering, triumphant song!”

    Such joy, such sweet joy…

    1. yeah mate, im not really good with analyzing poems….
      but hey it’s a good day to be gooners…. i wish u enjoy ur day just like i do…
      COYG!!!

    1. F**k ur pessimism hafiz.
      these are fresh: giroud, walcott, gibbs, ospina, roziscky, wilshere.
      go away.

    2. Burnout? Rubbish. After beating a team like united and breaking our hoodoo against them, i’d say the team will play with more confidence and zest. 5-0 to arsenal:)

  3. Per was marking Fellaini. Man U was lumping balls into the Big Fella, Per had to mark him.

  4. so proud of the lads. Maybe Monreal’s best game in an Arsenal kit? Ozil also really impressed me with his hardworking midfield performance. I almost feel bad for ManUre supporters.. those dives were pathetic/awful/embarrassing COYG

    1. Yes a very good game Sarsfield,but something is not right with Sanches his off ball work is great but when he runs with it he gets caught with it, he should release the ball quicker and produces nothiing.Ozil so class just glides passes to players and runs for return but if Sanches recieves it from Ozil he trys to much to beat a player and looses it, he needs to be droped CB

  5. So glad we won. Scholes and Any Tate were pissing me off.

    Full credit to Ozil, Monreal, Ox and Coquelin today. They were sublime and helped win the midfield/defensive battle.

    MOTM was Michael Oliver. Manned up and was having none of it.

    1. LOL how ironic, Mr Oliver for MOTM…..
      but it doesnt matter no more now that we finally beat those bloody devils…on thier own backyard…..with the winning goal from a gunner who was thrown away by the devils themselves……
      CHEERS GOONERS!!!!

      1. cazorla’s D is huge for us too. he’s done b2b behind ozil wonderfully ; must be hard for such a creative player to play there. and when cazorla has a great game, we win. like he did versus manc.

  6. Alhmdulillah, thank God for this win. I’m seeing a revival of the Invincibles from this game. They just need to play with guts and not feeling intimidated. And most important never ever underestimate yr opponent like we did to Monaco and thinking that we may take it easy with them. Like I’ve said b4 in my other comments at other topics, if we play like we did against Bayern at the Allianz Arena during the 2nd leg of the CL sometimes ago after losing at home to them, we can win even against the toughest opponents or at least give a good fight. Our players can do this magical transformation just like what we’re witnessing of Le Coq n of Ramsey last season, they just need to have the believe in themselves as well as others. Now lets really show some balls in the return leg against Monaco. COYG!!!

  7. @Daddy’s boy…..folks like you be thinking you r the only LoyaL fan in town…..aha! I’ve heard enough…… Do u mind Looking away now pls?

  8. Manchester players thought luck would be on their side we were lucky the referee had his eyes wide open and did a very good job all in all I am happy and having a very good evening
    Well done Arsenal

    1. Yes, the referee did his job professionally n with guts. He dismisses earlier claim for penalty when he was really pulled by a MU defender inside the D going for a goal opportunity ball. So the other really softer claims by MU players were really more of intentional dives esp that of Januzaj in the D. For once I’m sering that referees are no more intimidated unlike during the SAF era, hence the game can be really fair.

  9. so now what that we finally beaten the “big boys”…
    wonder what “they” gonna say now??? would be interesting, huh??

    1. Same old, OZil is a flop (although he is a flop with better stats than most No.10s in the country)
      Too reliant on Sanchez? Even though we have more goalscorers this season than any other prem team.
      Havent won a trophy in almost a year? probably lol

  10. What can I say, but “WELL DONE, BOYOS”. You have made us proud tonight. Now all I can ask for is a repeat performance when we visit them for the EPL game later in the season. And I must also agree with the comment that Sanchez is not doing the tika-taka very well. He does hold on to the ball too long and just about inevitably loses it. A game like the one against Utd today was crying for a Trojan like Rosicky, who takes no prisoners.

  11. Great result
    Great tactics
    Great performance!!!

    We’ve waited a while to win at OT but finally that hoodoo is gone (they seem to be dropping fast recently)

    Very good management bringing bellerin off when he did.

    Theo seemed to be coming on when the ox got injured, not sure why that changed

    And huge props to Mesut Ozil (our apparent flop) I thought he protected Chambers very well when he came on.

    Team should pick up great confidence now.

    Bring on The Hammers

    COYG!!!!!!!

  12. I’m gonna play devil’s advocate for a minute and try to view the game through a neutral perspective. I would say we just shaded the game, JUST. Against 10 men we were still rocking. This was a shakey as hell game and we could have done much better.

    I see a lot of people heaping praise on Welbeck but I’d argue a player with more awareness would have done better on our numerous counters. 3 times Welbeck actually ended our best counters by making poor runs that closed out space for other players. His hold up play was poor and he only ever wants to run towards the goal, lacking any real interplay with the rest of the team. His strength is in harrying the ball and making fast runs behind the defence, which is great, but he really has to work on his game off the ball. He had a good game, but we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves with his ability. I really did want to see Walcott come on – he’d have had a laugh playing against those defenders.

    On the flip side we defended reasonably well today and Coq was a beast again. Man Utd were constantly getting Fellaini to peel onto Bellerin and Monreal though and the lack of cover for them was very poor throughout. We were lucky that Fellaini is not the beast he once was and that we managed to limit him. In general Man Utds best chances came from wide crosses into the box, so looking forward we need to consider how to close those gaps out wide (and get Koscielny to trust Coq more and cover his own space instead of watching Coq’s man!).

    All in all we probably deserved the result but that could have easily swung the other way. On a side note that’s the best I’ve seen united play all season (typical) and if they’d not decided to be cheating assholes I’d actually have some respect for them. As it is – surely the FA should be having a word about the fact they had 2 bookings for diving as well as numerous other opportunities where the ref was more lenient (cough) Young (cough). Scumbags got what they deserved.

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