Henrikh Mkhitaryan was no doubt hoping to take all three points on his return to his former club, a strained relationship with Jose Mourinho providing him with extra incentive as the Gunners travelled to Old Trafford.
Despite a creditable 2-2 draw, there was a sense of frustration with how Arsenal conceded both equalisers, and the chances missed.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang a glorious chance to put Unai Emery’s men 3-2 up, as did Mkhitaryan himself but he poked the ball high over the bar from close range.
The Armenian international’s regret at not taking all three points was palpable when he spoke to the official website after the game.
“There is a lot of frustration because we should have won today,” he said. “I think we deserved to win but we drew. We were trying to score the third goal but unfortunately we couldn’t.
“Even if you have tired legs, the most important thing is to be fresh in the brain, in the mind. If you force yourself, if you push yourself to get to the end, then you will do that.
“You don’t have to listen to your legs, even if they are heavy or it’s hard to play. You have to do the maximum.
“We want to be in the top four, so it’s very important to win every game.”
Arsenal have injury worries on top of that too, with Rob Holding believed to have picked up a serious knee problem, while Aaron Ramsey suffered an ankle injury late in the first half.
Emery’s side slipped down a place in the table to 5th, but are now level on points with Chelsea who lost 2-1 to Wolves last night.
Read today’s Arseblog review of Man Utd 2-2 Arsenal
Man Utd 2-2 Arsenal: A decent but frustrating point at Old Trafford
In many ways we were very unlucky, Mkhit’s ‘goal’ was a cracker but offside, fine margins in defence to concede and several chances that could easily have gone in.
A point is OK and I hope they get confidence from 4 points from 6, December is busy.
To be honest I think Emery mad a bit of an error by not taking Ozil last night. When Ramsey came off, having Mesut there would have been perfect. I think he would’ve had a fair bit of success because United gave us so much time in their final third. I honestly couldn’t believe how much they backed off of us. Mourinho was doing his nut on the side line when they were giving us so much space. We had a few half chance or ‘maybe moments’ where our final ball lacked a bit of quality which I think Mesut… Read more »
I think Ozil’s back injury is genuine; I cannot believe he would not have been on the bench otherwise. Even if Emery would not want to start him (as I would have, ahead of Iwobi) he certainly would have him in reserve.
Ozil is injured.
I hope you’re both right. I just find it bizarre that there was no word of Ozil’s injury a few days before the game. When Emery was quizzed on it he literally said he didn’t know when the injury happened, or how long he was going to be injured for. He also said he didn’t know whether Mesut was in the stadium or not, you had Koscielny there, but no Mesut?
I find that odd. For me, I’m not sure that the back injury is genuine.
Bit late but has anyone noticed that we got through our bogey month undefeated. Pretty decent from Unai so far, anyone who says otherwise just needs to look at our away results in comparison to last season.
Aye, I think it was mentioned on the podcast. We did drop a few points that probably we shouldn’t have dropped, but that’s a fair improvement on previous Novembers.
It’s going to be interesting to see how we get through the remainder of a busy December.
And the away results are the key–remember we were second, and only three points behind Man City, in home results last season.
I am equally pained by the ‘loss’ of two points yesterday. But all things considered, we already have more points than we managed against them in the two games last season.
That has to be a positive.
There’s a good chance mustafis knee could be an issue too
Very frustrating – it really did feel like two points dropped. But, it’s fine- unbeaten in 20, and we’re at home to Huddersfield this Saturday. I can’t see Chelsea beating City, so we can widen that gap from them as I’ll be very surprised if Hudds get anything from us.
Here’s an interesting stat (well, I think so anyway): during Wenger’s entire tenure at Arsenal we’d only scored more than one goal at Old Trafford once (in the premier league). That was the 8-2 defeat.
Anyway…looking forward to the next game. Been a while since I’ve said that.
If you would have scored the effort from 3 yards out we would have won!
Even ignoring the result, not a good game, in comparison to the exhilaration and excitement against Spurs, or even of the back-and-forth of the draw against Liverpool. In part, tiredness. In part, Maurinho.