Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction – Video
You can imagine the Manchester United dressing room before the game when the team-sheets dropped. No Gabriel. No Riccardo Calafiori. They must have felt good about that. The absence of the Brazilian in particular would have given them some hope that they might negate Arsenal’s strength from corners.
What they didn’t realise though was that we are like a set-piece Hydra: cut off one head, and two more grow back. Metaphorically speaking, of course, but it also feels quite literal because at times in that second half it must have felt like we had more heads than them. This is the analysis that keeps people coming back.
It’s fair to say that the first half was pretty dismal from a performance perspective, and as a spectacle. United were well organised, kept the game narrow so we couldn’t get the ball wide to our wingers and stretch the play, and our best chances came from corners. From one Thomas Partey headed wide with the goal at his mercy, while after another the ball fell to Gabriel Martinelli who hooked a shot wide after an Oleksandr Zinchenko effort had been blocked.
At the other end, the only moment of real danger came when Jakub Kiwior’s clearance fell for Diogo Dalot who fizzed a shot not too wide of David Raya’s far post. After the away performances in Lisbon and at West Ham, this was certainly well below par from the collective – although there was a lot to like about what William Saliba was doing, defensively and in possession.
There must have been a conversation in the dressing room at the break, because immediately we looked better as the second half began. Gabriel Martinelli had an opportunity but took his shot too early (we did get a corner though), and Declan Rice saw a shot deflected over from which we also got a corner. It didn’t take long for the first goal of the game to arrive.
A corner from the left (won by Martinelli off de Ligt), delivered perfectly by Rice, saw Jurrien Timber flick home a header for his first goal for the club. I enjoyed the goal, I enjoyed the micro-analysis of whether Timber had made a foul in the build-up, I enjoyed the the crestfallen looks on the faces of the Manchester United players. The realisation that even without Gabriel, Arsenal can menace and torment you from corner kicks. And I honestly think that created a chink in their armour that we looked to chip away at again and again and again.
It wasn’t just set-pieces though. Combination play from Saka and Odegaard saw the former’s shot well saved at his near post by Onana, although the next moment of real danger came when a United player headed the a Rice corner towards his own far post, only for one his teammates to bail him out and head it off the line. At the other end, a Matthijs de Ligt header was brilliantly saved by David Raya after Zinchenko gave away a completely unnecessary free kick just outside the box after losing it carelessly from our own throw in. He should be sending the Spaniard a gift-basket today, because if that had gone in, he’d have been very much under the spotlight.
The manager made a couple of changes, with Zinchenko and Martinelli coming off for Mikel Merino and Leandro Trossard. The corners kept coming. The crowd got into it, and United were under the cosh. Marcus Rashford conceded one he shouldn’t have, Saka whipped it across, Partey headed back into the mixer, and while the big Frenchman didn’t know much about it, the ball rebounded off Saliba’s arse and into the back of the net for 2-0. More than anyone he deserved a goal, he was so good last night in every aspect of his game, so for him to seal the game felt right.
Merino could have made it 3-0, heading just wide. More corners. More noises of anticipation from the home fans. More jitters in the United box. Onana doing as well as he could but the quality of the deliveries – particularly from Rice – must have made him feel like he’d rather have been anywhere else. I liked Rice’s post-game comments about corners and the threat we pose from them:
You have to believe in your process. We believe in our process, you know, we keep at it all the time. We never get bored. When you go up for a corner, there’s a chance to score a goal. It’s not a chance to relax and chill.
I thought that was interesting. The mindset that it’s an opportunity seems obvious to me, but maybe that’s not always how corners have been viewed by players and managers down the years. Certainly now nobody can ignore the fact that being this good at one specific aspect of the game can be hugely beneficial. I’m not going to say et that set-pieces have been viewed as the poor relation of well-worked team goals, but there has been an association with teams who can’t do the former so they concentrate on the latter. Maybe it’s not quite the same as Arsene Wenger finding an advantage in something as simple as diet and nutrition back in the day, but I don’t think any Premier League team these days can afford to just wing it from corners and set-pieces. Arsenal have demonstrated you can be good at football generally, while concentrating on this aspect of the game too.
As Arteta said afterwards:
We need to look at every angle: what the [opposition] do, where they can be weak, and where we can exploit the weakness of the opposition. Every single phase of play, just maximise it and keep working on it, keep improving.
But it’s not just about set-pieces:
We want to create individual moments, magic moments, a lot of players can create their own goals. We can create goals on short counters, long counters, against slow build-ups, when we have to have restarts and the opportunity to open the opposition. Every single phase of play, just maximise it and keep working on it, keep improving.
Maybe some people will pour scorn on the fact we won a game with two goals from corners, as if those goals are somehow worth less. Ask any United fan this morning though: would they rather score two set-pieces and win, or lose 2-0, and every single one of them will go with that first option. It’s a huge credit to Arteta, to Nicolas Jover in his role as set-piece coach, and these players that we are so consistently effective from part of the game that has been often overlooked by many managers for years and years.
At 2-0 that was that. There were more corners. It was probably instructive that at one point before Saka or Rice delivered, Ruben Amorim sat ashen-faced on the United bench, almost unable to watch. As if he was experiencing the final kick of a penalty shoot-out rather than something as mundane as an Arsenal corner, but that tells you plenty about what we can do, and what he needs to do with his own team.
So, that makes it four wins from four since the last Interlull, and it was a hugely important three points as well because a late goal at St James’ Park saw Newcastle hold Liverpool to a 3-3 draw. Just a couple of points dropped, but it was absolutely vital we took advantage of that. Attention now to turns to the weekend, and Sunday’s visit to Fulham, but for now, we can enjoy a good win over traditional rivals and the fact the gap to the top has closed just a little.
For more on this game, we’ll have an Arsecast for you a bit later this morning, so please join us for that. In the meantime, have a good one and enjoy Wrighty’s joy and Gary Neville’s face.
The dichotomy (trichotomy???) of man #arsenal
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— arseblog (@arseblog.com) December 5, 2024 at 7:33 AM