Jose Mourinho did a number on Arsenal once again to see us drop back to 5th place again, 7 points behind today’s opponents Man United and 12 points behind the leaders Manchester City, who still have a game in hand. Arsenal were unbelievably 2-0 down in just 10 minutes due to two defensive mistakes but once we woke up we were peppering De Gea’s goal from left, right and centre. But could we get it in the net?
Wenger was obviously angry after the game and finds it hard to believe that three errors gave United three goals, but we couldn’t score more than one despite our complete dominance. “I think the quality of our performance was good but we were not decisive enough.” Le Prof lamented. “I believe at the back we didn’t start well at all and we put ourselves in a very difficult position.
“Despite that, there were enough chances to come back and I don’t know if you have watched many top-level games, but when you have 33 shots on goal in a game of that stature, it means that our dominance was top class. I’m angry and disappointed because at the end we have nothing to show for it and even at 2-1 we made another mistake at the back that made the game even more difficult.”
To be fair towards the end we hardly had any defenders! When Mustafi made his mistake he immediately went to ground and was taken off injured, and Alex Iwobi was his replacement. Both Xhaka and Kolasinac were taken off for Danny Welbeck and Olivier Giroud. Lacazette, Ozil and Sanchez were up there too, and Aaron Ramsey was playing like a second striker, so I can understand why Wenger is a little upset. All that attacking force on the pitch but with no end result to show for it. I know De Gea played well, but we surely could have tested him a bit harder when we got our shots off?
Darren N