Arsenal face an Old Rival who is testing new lows
Manchester united for a lot of Arsenal fans are the team they hate the most. It was the team that lorded over the Premier League and were the main adversary of Arsene Wenger. It was and still remains one of the biggest matches in the World.
Coming into this one however Manchester United are really at a low point that I thought might have been impossible.
Teams this rich, with this much revenue, who spend that much on transfers, teams who still have wage bills that lap others in the division don’t fall this low.
Yet they have, and it is not a fluke. They are a bad team and they are very much in the place on the table that they should be.
Arsenal aren’t at their healthiest or their best but this presents an excellent opportunity for the team to get one over on their rivals in a way that they haven’t in a long long time.
Manchester United Performance
Manchester United got fooled by the not a good measure of success, trophies and it has been a major issue for them. They stuck with Eric Ten Hag for an additional summer, investing further into players that fit his style (even if I think they did decent just going for younger, generically promising vs very tied to his style).
They ended up pulling the plug in the middle of the season and have done a major switch of gears to Ruben Amorin.
Amorim predominantly deploys a 3-4-3 formation, and that has been a messy fit for the personal that Manchester United has. Amorim strongly believes in his system and has favored the team suffering through playing out of position or with less than ideal roles over making a compromise against his principles.
This has led to Manchester United looking pretty poor all around.
They rank pretty solidly lower midtable in the metrics so far this season, ranking 15in xG difference and 15th in goal difference. Neither the attack (15th for goals scored with just 33, 13th in xG with 36.4) nor the defense (11th for goals allowed with 39, 13th in xG against with 41.6) looks particularly strong right now with the team finding it’s self basically where you would expect a team like this to be.
At this point of the season, the differences in schedules are pretty minimal but there is something very interesting about how the numbers look for this team.
They have just three wins against teams ranked in my top 10, with two of them coming against Fulham and the other a Derby win against a banged up Manchester City.
Even at home against these teams, they have not performed at the level that you would expect from the badge, but might expect from the spot on the table.
Manchester United Form
The form table doesn’t really add any comfort for United. They are just as bad on this as they are on the full season version.
United have 2 wins in their last 5 in the League and have not exactly blown anyone away over this run.
In the Eruopa League last night they played okay, neither team created much and it was probably mission accomplished to come back to England with a chance to win it at Old Trafford.
In the Premier League it is much of the same, a bunch of pretty mixed performances and nothing that really looks all that great.
They lost the xG battle in all 5 matches over this span, but with only two of them where the margin was greater than 1 expected goal.
They might have gotten a bit fortunate against Everton, where their late flurry and a fortunate VAR intervention propelled them to a point from down 2. They got beat pretty deservingly by Crystal Palace and really the other matches were kind of snooze fests that there wasn’t too much to report on.
Style Comparison
Manchester United favor a more direct, vertical approach within their possession framework. Build-up starts deep with the back three, but the focus is to generate teams to come on to them and manufacture chances to create transitions via switches of play to wing-backs high and wide or long balls to the striker.
There is just not a lot here in the numbers that suggest they are anything more than a mediocre to bad team.
Keys to the game
If I were looking at what Arsenal need to do in this match to tilt it in their favor I would focus on these items
CREATE CHOAS. Against PSV we got to see Arsenal play with a bit more freedom in the final third and it was a bit more relationism compared to the normal very structured positionalism. When you have a healthy team you can probably lean more into the structure but without that, having players be able to move into and around areas where the defense doesn’t expect is needed. It might mean there are a few more chances on the counter but that is a trade off that I think the team should be comfortable with.
STOP BRUNO. When I look at this Manchester United team, I am really only worried about Bruno Fernandes. When he is on the ball, he can not be given the time and space to pick out a pass. It is a bit contradictory with number 1 above but he will need to be game planed for because without him (even with him often) Manchester United don’t have a ton of ideas for creation.
EXPLOIT THE WINGBACKS. Manchester United don’t have the specialist wing-backs for Amorin’s system and it often makes this a weak point that can be exploited. This is an area that when United have the ball, if Arsenal can win it there will be space wide to attack through. This has been a major weakness for United and one where Arsenal can hopefully get some joy.
My model and the betting odds like Arsenal in this match and I am pretty confident that even away from home and depleted with injury Arsenal should come away with a win if they can execute to the level that we expect from this team. It was concerning to see how bad the team played against West Ham but since then the effort that I required from Arsenal has been there.
I believe the team can come into this match and do what is expected and that should put them in a position to win. The big win on Tuesday no doubt also helps lift the spirit in the squad.