Declan Rice has admitted that Arsenal struggled to break down Manchester United’s low block in their 1-1 draw with the Red Devils.
The thrilling encounter, which came alive in the second half, saw both teams share the spoils. Arsenal controlled the first half, as they looked to take the lead, but they were caught out just before the break, falling behind in added time. However, after the interval, the Gunners improved, and they were able to equalise. Yet, they had David Raya to thank for some crucial saves that kept them in the game.
Manchester United, on the other hand, found space and were more effective when they had possession. Arsenal struggled to break down their defensive setup, as the Red Devils defended in numbers, making it difficult for the Gunners to create clear-cut chances.
After the match, Rice reflected on the team’s performance, acknowledging that it had been a challenging game, particularly against a well-organised defensive unit like United’s. He said, as quoted by Premier League Productions:
“We scored seven midweek, and that wasn’t luck. It was full throttle, today we tried with the same intentions. Credit to Man Utd, sometimes it takes 90 minutes to break down the low block. There wasn’t much in the game.”
Rice’s comments highlighted the frustration that Arsenal faced in breaking down United’s defence. Despite their efforts, they were unable to fully capitalise on their possession and attacking play. He also admitted that the team was fortunate to have come away with a point, given the nature of the match.
“It was a tough day at the office for us as a team, and we were lucky to even get a point. We now have to focus on winning our next matches,” Rice added.
The Gunners will now turn their attention to their upcoming fixtures, with the aim of improving their performances and securing vital points in the remaining games of the season.
ADMIN COMMENT
So here are some simple rules which I must insist commenters follow….
You agree not to give any personal abuse to other Arsenal fans. Everyone is allowed to hold their own opinions even if you disagree with them. It COSTS NOTHING TO BE POLITE TO OTHER ARSENAL FANS.
The sad thing is and I do not like it, we are giving the title to Liverpool and there is no fight. We are NOT making it difficult. We are letting them have it. They are not having to worry. They will win it easy.
In any battle,it’s difficult to fight when your soldiers are wounded. This isn’t unique to Arsenal by the way. Last season for instance,Liverpool were in the title race. They led for majority of the campaign if I’m not wrong- seven points ahead of Arsenal at some point. But when injuries started piling up for them, they faded away. And in the season one of their key players got injured(VVD), they barely made top four. Look at City without Rodri.
Health,I’ve come to realise,is one of the key factors in winning the Premier League,and it’s not always something you can control. Even Leicester, the year they won it, had pretty much the same 11 throughout the season.
The title race has been over for a while but we have to focus on winning games to solidify that second spot to maintain momentum and keep morale high and see what we can do in the Champions League.
I always thought the difference in the utd-arsenal title race in the Ferguson-Wenger era usually did come down to who had the better fortune with injuries, so it’s always been a factor in my mind.
The difference with this one is that the striker situation was extremely predictable. We know about Jesus’ injury issues, and so were always going to be reliant on havertz staying fit, just to put out a viable lineup (ignoring the fact players suffer from fatigue). We sold Eddie, who while not a great player would be better than we have now and has scored crucial goals in big games for us, and we didn’t replace him at all. I lose sympathy when our planning has been so poor.
We are not missing a striker because Arteta has not played with a striker for at least 3 seasons. He has used a converted winger and a attacking midfielder. We ARE missing a striker because Arteta has ignored one. The injuries are yet another excuse. We were not that weak yesterday, before xmas, last season and the season before. Its a manager not able to cope.
That was as poor a utd as i have ever seen yesterday.
I’m not sure Arteta ignored a striker. It’s public knowledge that he had interest in Vlahovic and most recently Sesko. Why these players were ultimately not signed probably goes beyond the manager.
And I don’t buy the notion that a team can only do well with a traditional number nine. While it’s good to have one of those, it’s not the be all end all in football. One of the best footballing sides I’ve watched in my life is Pep’s Barcelona and lots of time they played with a false nine.
The current league leaders,Liverpool, also ‘converted’ Jota and Gakpo to play as false nines-these guys are primarily wide forwards. Relying on false nines has been the staple for some of the best Liverpool sides of the recent past,including Firmino. Didn’t stop them from winning the league. As a matter of fact, the only striker Liverpool have is Nunez but he’s always on the bench because they’d rather use false nines than him.
Citing injuries isn’t an excuse. It’s a legitimate reason that can affect the performance of any team. The only thing we can question is the planning of the club in ensuring we don’t suffer injury crises to the extent that we have this season. We definitely went into this season with a weakened attack.
That’s not what I mean – it’s about numbers. We had two forwards who have played CF for any period of time, and we knew one was injury prone. We were banking on the other staying fit all season, but as it turns out, we’re forced into trying others in that role who haven’t played much there before or drastically changing our style of party during the season, using systems no one is used to at all.
I do think it was right to sell Eddie, but we needed someone else – it didn’t have to be a world class striker for that role, just someone who could do the job well enough to offer a focal point.
Apologies, I thought this was a response to my comment – saw more that you answered below. Thought that was an odd reply 😅
Jesus is not a converted winger – he played occasionally on the wing at city, but was always a striker before, and most of his time at city. You can criticise him and say he’s better suited to the wing (definitely fair imo), but the fact of the matter is he has played up front for the vast majority of his career.
Personally, I think he’s one of those who grew up playing in 2-striker systems, but really struggled to adapt to playing up front on his own. He was better at it when he played for city, though.
Wrong, Aguero played striker and Jesus wide. We got him because Pep didn’t see him or want him as a striker. Jesus wanted to play striker and Arteta obliged, wrongly.
Sorry, you’re wrong, I looked it up a while ago – he played wide a few times to get minutes, but the vast majority of his appearances were at cf
For man city:
186 appearances at CF
20 at rw
19 at lw
That’s according to transfer market – I don’t know how to be more accurate than that, but there it is
Pep told him, he was not a striker and he didn’t play him as a striker. Jesus was mardy and left to join Arsenal because Arteta promised him, he would play him as striker. Arsenalinsider, Jesus was interviewed, where it said Jesus commonly played wide but now and again played striker. The point is Pep sold him because he didn’t see him as a striker.
Well that may be true, but it doesn’t change the fact pep largely played him as a striker. He was clearly intended to be agueros backup and most likely they hoped he’d be the long term replacement – it may well be that when the time came, pep didn’t trust him for that role (I guess that’s hard to deny), and they bought haaland in any case.
But he was a striker when they signed him and he largely played there. Given those facts, it’s probably more accurate to say pep didn’t think he was good enough to be the starting striker, but who’s going to say that in an interview?
None of us are the proverbial flies on the wall regarding the lack of striking options from last summer and hindsight with Jesus is a wonderful thing. Who’d have thought that our 4 senior attacking options would succumb to injury? Where the responsibility lay with not strengthening, I’m not sure. Both Edu and Arteta would be working together and the board would have a say too. The upshot has been the unravelling of the season
When we were discussing the lack of a striker ad nauseum in January/February, I don’t recall anyone bemoaning the departure of Nketiah to Palace. His record there is dire. With the way things have gone, he’d have been injured as well☹️
Davi you make great points regarding the planning. Our attack was left very thin and weak. Essentially they gambled on Jesus staying fit and Sterling being decent. At that point Nwaneri had not been trusted yet so we ended up overplaying Havertz and Saka. The inconsistency of our left wingers didn’t help either. I agree with you that it was poor planning,unless there were other reasons such as PSR that came into play. Eddie would have been useful by the way.
You could also argue that the departure of ESR and Vieira left us short in the creative department. Maybe the plan was to create a path for Nwaneri but he wasn’t used as much when Odegaard was injured. There are some decisions there that are indeed baffling with regards to how the squad was constituted.Anyway,they have another chance in the summer to finally address these issues because we are so close.
👍 completely agree
Whatever we say, that was a ramshackle utd team yesterday and there are no excuses that can save our blushes. The tactics and approach were all wrong and not for the first time. Own up people that team was shite. The ONLY player out of the whole utd team that should get in ours is Fernandez, the rest would not get in the reserves.
I’m not making excuses, I’m saying we got it wrong from the start of the season by having an unbalanced squad, which has led to us not having anyone who can play forward. That’s on arteta.
Had we had havertz yesterday I’ve no doubt at all we’d have won, despite his shortcomings, because he understands the position well enough. Had we had someone in backup who was remotely as competent at CF, I’ve no doubt we’d have won that game either. We’re short, but it’s our own fault.
Good points Onyango.
I had wondered whether financial considerations forced the club’s hand in relation to the likes of Nketiah and ESR.
There is little doubt that the squad is relatively thin. Havertz and Saka had proven quite durable until this season so it is likely that it was hoped that this would continue into this season and others could then be rotated in from time to time.
Sterling’s level has been quite significantly below what one would have expected.
Unfortunately, some people are debating the striker issue in a rather silly way. There are a limited number of proven strikers in world football and they would all come at huge cost which could impact squad building in other ways. If we had not invested in the defence and MF the deficiencies there could have created even more problems for the team.
But Arteta has chosen NOT to buy a striker for 3 years. Jesus was his choice, he isn’t a striker. Haverz was his choice, he isn’t a striker. We are where we are thanks to the manager. The manager manages. He stuck with Nketiah for two years, even increasing his wages for what? He wasn’t good enough and he hardly played him. Lets hear the excuses, you like to use, instead of the real reasons.
At the time I wasn’t a fan of keeping Nketiah either but we did end up getting £30 million so there is that. MA stuck with him but then determined he wasn’t good enough and hardly played him. Seems contradictory unless something else was at play.
👍
Onyango,
If your comparing them to Soldiers, I certainly wouldn’t want to be in the trenches with them.🤦♂️
“Ask yourself, why is that Liverpool still manage to get past teams even when those teams sit back and defend against them?
If you’re a deep thinker, this question should help you shed some light on what the real problem at Arsenal is.
I fully, accept the impact of injuries on our team, but the truth is; even with fully fit squad not much would’ve changed.
Since the beginning of this season, our style of play has left me longing for those quick direct pressing/ counterattacking football we played during the 2022/2023 season.
In those matches we constantly kept opposition defender’s on their toes, with players like Martinelli and Saka constantly running at and dribbling past them.
Remind me please. When was the last match our wingers successfully took on defenders and created chances?
What we’ve now become accustomed to is a playing style that indicates coach’s obsession with possession. The limitations of this style becomes obvious whenever we come up against teams who sit back and defend.
Our attackers simply do not take on defenders to create anything, they’re just comfortable passing the ball backwards and sideways to retain possession.
And to make matters worse, the inverted system preferred by our coach exposes our full backs to constant counterattacking threat by opposition wingers. Teams like Newcastle, Bournemouth, WestHam, Fulham among others have fully exploited this weakness.
You know what the saddest part is?
Our coach seems to believe this only/best way we can play and he won’t change.
Now, back to the comparisons with how Liverpool play. I believe I don’t even have to say a word about aspect of their playing style that ensures defenders of opponents in a low-block are constantly kept under pressure until they cave in.
At this point, I hope you’ll come to realize that the players are not responsible for the slow paced, backward and sideways football we play. If anyone should be held responsible, you know who that is.
And I still maintain my stand; we won’t win the league with this style of play.”
So sorry I had to repeat my comment on a previous post here. It fits the response perfectly.
I have been saying similar on deaf ears for years. Inverted wingers are limited and our wingers are always too deep to start. That is why we are and always have been under Arteta, slow in the build up. And that is and always has been, the slow deliberate build up. Playing by numbers. Even if we ever het a striker, we will still struggle to change the way we play. We are always looking to come inside on our strong foot, giving teams tome to get settled. We will never win anything playing that stupid way, whoever is our striker, if we ever get one.
We were lucky to get away with a point there.
Just need to keep our heads down and make sure we don’t miss out on top 4, that is the reality at the moment.
Raya was magnificent, making 3 world class saves to keep arsenal in the match. Rice, too, was great at both ends, scoring the all important goal and clearing off the line. It was tough against a low block and Arsenal must now focus on PSV midweek and get the job done to go through to the quarter finals of the CL and also improve their PL performances since Forest and the other 4-5 teams are lurking behind for the top 4 finish.
Some great points made by a host of caring fans on JA.I missed the second half yesterday but by all accounts the control we had during the first 45 mins evaporated in the second half.I thought I would mention how much I enjoyed the performance of Bournemouth yesterday who outplayed Spurs for most of the game and were desperately unlucky not to win.How refreshing it is to see a team play with such pace and intensity in a simple 4-3-3 system where their full backs,particularly Kerkes, bomb forward and cause havoc with crosses on the run.Of course they were not faced with opponents using a low block set up, nevertheless, the way they continually pressed and put pressure on their ragged opponents was a joy to see.Last week I highlighted the talents of Dean Huijsen the Bournemouth CB and my word he lived up to his growing reputation with an imperious display.
Another enlightening piece by grandad.😉👍