Hey, we play Man U today and I’m sure that you’ve heard about their grand resurgence under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Since they unshackled themselves from Jose Mourinho, Manchester United have won 7 in a row, scored 19 goals, and conceded just 4. Paul Pogba alone has five goals and four assists and Marcus Rashford has also chipped in 5 goals. They are playing free, smiling, dancing, and hugging each other. This is more than just a “new manager bounce”, this is like Weird Science, where the two boys just made themselves a supermodel while wearing bras on their heads and they are currently dressed in awful 80’s suits, throwing the biggest party in Chicago Suburb history.
That puts Arsenal as the party crashers. The “weirdos from the wasteland” with mohawks and leather jackets. And we all know how that ends up: Wyatt and Gary pull out what they think are squirt guns but are really loaded, they accidentally almost shoot someone, everyone chickens out and Michael Berryman backs his motorcycle up and apologizes for the mess.
The bookies even have Arsenal as minor favorites in this, which considering this is a home game is practically giving the match to United.
Much of that advantage is down to what each team has to lose. Arsenal are inches away from another manufactured calamity* which will keep the pods going for another two weeks raking over the dead coals of whether or not so-an-so was right to leave, if Arsenal have any money, is Unai a bum, and whether Ozil is a waster or a wonder. Meanwhile United don’t have such pressures. Even if they fall flat they can wrack it up to bad calls, a bad, day, or the subs not doing well. If they win, they continue the party, like when Kelly Lebrock turned Chet into a giant turd.
Speaking of, Alexis Sanchet will probably play, Romelu Lukaku will probably play, and United will almost certainly deploy a second team in many positions. Arsenal’s injuries are racking up and Chet will likely face Ainsley Maitland-Niles, or maybe the Lich. No matter who Unai puts there, Alexis will look to torture them (and all of us) by walking up close to them, then standing still, flicking one foot over the ball, and either falling over while being dispossessed or (occasionally) putting in a good cross. With Lukaku up front, that could be trouble.
Arsenal have to take a leaf from the last two big home wins over Chelsea and Tottenham: go after them from the start. Pressing Alexis is the best answer, he will give the ball up and so will almost everyone on that team. They aren’t a great possession team, even Pogba, who has a masterful dribble, is prone to too many turnovers.
I will know that we are doing well when Alexis gets “frustrated” and pretends to play defense with a dramatic tracking run and slide tackle. And when he starts waving his teammates to press, then you know that the match is nearly over. But the joy I most want to see is him kneeling down at the halfway line with his fist under his chin, contemplating what it was that brought him to this horrible fate (it’s him).
Will Unai start Ozil? Will he play the diamond with Ramsey at the tip? Will Ozil have the game of his life and unleash a paintball-like flurry of balls in the box? Will Arsenal contain the striding long legs of Paul “Bunyan” Pogba and his Ox Blue?
I have to admit, I have United winning this one. And perhaps that’s a defense mechanism similar to United’s: that way there’s no pressure.
*Arsenal won’t drop out of the top six and that’s a guaranteed Europa League spot
Of course we lose another important player to injury. Of course. This is Arsenal.
Mustafi it is, then. Maitlind-Niles it is, then.
We are f*cked.
Absolutely loving the Weird Science reference. I really must watch that film again.
2 shots on goal, 2 goals. That’s the Arsenal defense, hard at work! And you’re welcome, Sanchez. We do like to give struggling players a boost of confidence.
You know, I don’t really care about the FA Cup, but I do hate that we’re basically letting United ride this nauseating feel-good wave at the moment. Have we nothing to curb their growing sense of self-importance? To wipe that impish grin from Ole’s imp face?
Love the FA Cup, Bun. Those spring Wembley days of the players soaking it in mean a lot. To them, and the fans. I’d take that over 4th.
Kos Sok, we hardly knew ye 😭
We’ll always have that Chelsea game.
A 2-0 home win don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.
We need a right back. Literally and metaphorically.
That honestly looked like so many games from late era Wenger. Dominate possession, try to walk the ball in, then get burned on the counter.
And while that was not a great performance, equally rotten luck on the injuries. I felt like Kos-Sok could be pretty solid. Missing one of them for another extended period would be bad. Missing both would be a disaster.
great goal by alexis.
Fab player for Arsenal. How e could do with his quality out wide. Some pretty amusing revisionism has grown around Sanchez, as if his last half-season totally defines him.
Oh Jose. Why did you leave?
He’s not done much at ManU since though.
You’re right, there is a bit of revisionism around Alexis. But he stunk out the place his last half season, and in hindsight, when I thought he was carrying the team, it is very possible he was actually taking away from the team.
A bit of both, I think.
I wonder if Sanchez would still move to man united if he knew what his first two years under mourinho would be like. For a player like him who relies on athleticism and quickness, currencies that are amortizing on him at this point in his career, he would not have fancied the limited football he would be asked to play. I think that explains a lot of his skulking. As for today, I didn’t think he was a difference maker in that game. Yeah, nice goal, but it’s one you expect him to score for my money, 1 v 1 with the keeper after a busted offside trap. For the most part, auxillary RB AMN kept him pretty quiet. Hardly the value united were looking for either. That he found his scoring touch at the site of his old glories is hardly a coincidence and not a trend I particularly expect to continue. If I’m united, I give the keys of that team to Pogba, Martial and Rashford, not Ole’ Alexis. I think he will be like Mkhitaryan on Arsenal, playing decent minutes in games of moderate importance, occasionally contributing, but not coming close to justifying his immense contract.
On reflection, that was a pretty poor performance. Sure we started well, and the players really were up for the game, but we’d get up to their penalty box, go left, and hope Kola or Iwobi could engineer a cross that would find its way to an Arsenal player. It took Ramsey to do that.
Our defense suffered with injuries, but that 3rd goal was horrendous with players (looking at you Guen) jogging back. I dunno why our midfield goes missing even with 2 players ostensibly sitting deeper.
Apart from a difference in passing patterns, this was like the very worst of Wengerball. Worse even. Sorry, I am not entertained.
Hope Koscielny is going to be ok soon. That poor guy even has Arsenal’s luck.
I didn’t think we were bad. We looked dangerous down their left all game and created good opportunities in possession, but they very intelligently attacked the space behind Kolasinac and we needed excellent rearguard defending on those occasions when they bypassed the press. We didn’t get it. Bless Ainsley, he’s no right back and got cooked in the offside trap for their opener and then they had a big burst of confidence and scored a different version of the same goal two minutes later. That was the ballgame. What if Hector and Sokratis were still in the game? I don’t think we concede those goals, but it doesn’t matter, they weren’t and we did.
What struck me most was how much worse we looked after Ozil was introduced. He and Ramsey got in each others’ way and our energy level and purpose noticeably dropped. It didn’t help that they brought on two killer forwards in the last 20 minutes against our makeshift rearguard which was stretched by necessity due to the numbers we had to commit forward. Emery’s changes didn’t work out in this match, but we also had rotten luck losing two more defenders to injury, and on balance of chances probably deserved another goal. The first goal is always crucial because it dictates which team has to come out of its shape and expose its defenders to counter-attacks. It was us vs. Chelsea and it was them today. The team that scores first usually wins.
Ozil, well, I know it was a tough spot for him coming into a game like that having hardly played but he hardly looked like he was playing on the same pitch as the others. With him on the pitch, Arsenal reverted to peak Wenger intricate passing in front the box (which has not been their calling card under Emery) instead of looking to combine on the left, which was working out well. And as usual he didn’t give consistent effort when we lost the ball. It was easy to see why Emery has dropped him.
Going out wide and crossing it in is retro English football. (Quite fitting that we’re going to get a revamped bruised banana kit next year) I disagree that it was working well. I mean it was basically all we were doing so it obviously ‘worked’ at times. But even the goal we did get was a bit lucky. At least we had 3 players running onto the cross, which actually managed to get through. Most often that wasn’t the case.
I don’t know. Ozil did seem on a different wavelength to the team, but isn’t that kind of the point of Ozil? He played some good passes from deep, and played in players on the left. But our movement was lacking, and for some weird reason we were all camped on the left side. We miss Bellerin maybe a tad too much.
I’m not disappointed we lost. I kind of expected us to. I get the injuries were unfortunate and affected us. I think the Kos injury also mentally hurt us and the long delay upset our rhythm. I get all that and I think our energy in the game was generally good. I just didn’t like what I saw, especially in attack.