Arsenal closed the gap on league leaders Liverpool to seven points with a [2-0 win over Manchester United](https://arseblog.news/2024/12/report-arsenal-2-0-man-utd-inc-goals-3/) engineered by set-piece coach Nicolas Jover.
Despite losing talismanic centre-back Gabriel to injury before the match, the Gunners, who’ve earned a reputation for their prowess from corners, pressed home that advantage with Jurrien Timber and William Saliba on the scoresheet.
Manchester United did well to frustrate Arsenal in the first half, restricting Mikel Arteta’s men to a couple of half chances. However, the home side stepped things up after the break and ran out deserved winners.
The manager was delighted by his team’s game management and the way they let the shackles off after some half-time tactical tweaks.
Here’s what he had to say when he faced questions from [BBC Match of the Day](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/videos/c17dlj1l4r1o)…
**On stepping things up in the second half…**
Yes, we certainly did. It’s a special day. It’s 500 games in this incredible stadium. We wanted to celebrate against a side that obviously we have a lot of history. Incredible, the way we responded, the way we played the second half, the goals we scored, two set pieces, we could have scored from open play many more, kept the clean sheet. I’m very happy because we lost two massive players for us in the backline, Jakub came in, Alex came in and the team really responded. Really pleased with everything.
**On what he said at half-time…**
We had to adjust one or two things in the defensive part from what we were doing, especially we had to do the simple things better, we gave away too many simple balls, we found advantages and gave the ball away, so we never got that dominance and attack the spaces and be able to get together so we can counter-press them. We did that much better in the second half, the game opened up a little bit, there were a lot of balls in the final third and we looked a real threat.
**On restricting United to minimal chances…**
Yeah, at the end, after the throw-in, we gave them that free-kick that they could have scored and then you need someone like David to make the save. I think it was 2-0 at the time but very pleased. It’s a jot to play in this stadium with that energy, something incredible.
**On whether this was Arsenal’s most effective game from a set-piece standpoint…**
Well, one of the best, we could have scored more but it was the same a few times this season. I’m very pleased with that, the team has to have the capacity to score from many different situations, many different phases, today we could have scored from open play, short counters, stable build-ups, we did it at the end with two set pieces, great.
**On winning three league games in a row for the first time this season…**
We have to do our business, continue to play at the level we’re playing and continue to win matches, what the rest do, we’ll see.
**On becoming the first Arsenal manager to win four games in a row against Manchester United…**
Ok, thank you so much!