Arsenal's clash with Manchester United had been a tight one. The Gunners had been kept largely at arm's length by their visitors and sensing a chance to gain ground on Liverpool in the title race the Emirates Stadium crowd began to grow anxious around the halfway mark.
With Amad Diallo and Marcus Rashford's pace to bring off the bench as Arsenal tried harder to get the opening goal they so craved you began to wonder if Ruben Amorim had got his game plan spot on. Mikel Arteta had a trump card to play though.
Gabriel Martinelli's shot deflected off Harry Maguire and out for a corner. We all know what that means with Arsenal by now...
The Gunners had gone close in the first half through Thomas Partey, but Jurrien Timber made no mistake in flicking Declan Rice's corner home. Rice's delivery continued to cause problems and the Gunners could easily have doubled their lead when Joshua Zirkzee's header was cleared off his own goal-line by Noussair Mazraoui.
As good as Rice's corners from the left are though, Bukayo Saka's ones from the right aren't half bad either. The England winger crossed with pinpoint accuracy to Partey at the back post only for the Ghanaian to see his header deflect in off William Saliba's backside. At this point the game was safe. Set-pieces had been key for Arsenal yet again.
"I think we want to be very dangerous and very effective from every angle and every phase of play," Arteta said after the game. "The team really has that belief that from every angle we have the mentality to threaten the opponent and try to score. Today was two set-pieces."
Amorim agreed that it was the dead ball scenarios that swung the game in his post-match press conference. "I think the corners changed the game, the set-pieces," the new United boss said. "Then we lost the momentum, we tried everything then to control the game again. You feel it in the first half, in the environment of the stadium, that we were causing problems. We need to improve in a lot of areas of our game, but we were controlling the game."
It's not like Amorim hadn't seen it coming though. Arsenal are notorious for their set-piece abilities and United had made their preparations.
Before the game the Red Devils could be seen working together to head balls away in a warm up drill run by set-piece coaches Andreas Georgson and Carlos Fernandes. It was all to no avail though, as they were ultimately lucky to concede only two from dead ball scenarios.
This article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it. Learn more
Premier League