Arsenal played well at Old Trafford this afternoon, but return to London the end of a 3-1 defeat.
The Gunners thought they’d gone ahead in the first half when Gabriel Martinelli got on the end of a Bukayo Saka pass, but after a consultation with VAR, referee Paul Tierney decided there had been a foul (there wasn’t).
Antony put United ahead midway through the first period but after that Mikel Arteta’s team played well and were more than deserving of Saka’s second half equaliser.
However, they got caught on the break to allow Marcus Rashford to make it 2-1, and a triple sub by Arteta seemed to imbalance the side, and within a minute of those changes Rashford scored again to make it 3-1.
Here’s how the players rated this afternoon.
Read the Man Utd 3-1 Arsenal report and see the goals here
Man Utd 3-1 Arsenal – Player Ratings
The ratings are hidden by default until you vote, but if you just want to view the ratings and the comments, flick the switch at the top above Aaron Ramsdale. Also, please give the ratings a few seconds to load.
A very Wenger-esque performance all in all. Tonnes of the ball, very good possession, very poor finishing, a couple of dodgy decisions and appalling defending.
That’s my take too – this felt very much like a Wengerian top six away day. I didn’t like reliving those…
How Varane escaped without a yellow is honestly baffling! Everytime Jesus got the ball, he was all over him with arms wrapped around our striker like a baby desperately clinging to it’s mum. Yet, Saliba gets one from his first foul. The referees in England are so protected. And it’s funny that your journalists are not even writing about them despite all the dodgy calls week after week. Early in the year when we saw a comical refeering display at the AFCON, English papers jumped all over it. So they are allowed to criticize referees from other continents but not… Read more »
What about martinez kicking Jesus legs. Was that not violent conduct.
Thats football. ARSENAL FAN HERE
English media only report on farcical, cheating referees when they’re not white
Goals wins games and we gave away too many. The ref did not put the ball in the net for them. I am an Arsenal fan not a biased person
I’m sorry but top level football is decided by fine margins. The referee literally stopped Arsenal from putting the ball in the net.
That’s because there is underline xenophobia. If Johnny Foreigner does it then it’s terrible but us brits are unimpeachable. It’s a double standard but to be fair it happens in other countries as well. The only thing that makes it worse is we pride ourselves on our “fair play”.
Underlying, not underline.
It’s exhausting isn’t it.
Think the only surprise is United didn’t get into our box enough to get their customary penalty
What they got was a debutant scoring – Rooney, Rashford and now Antony (probably others I’ve forgotten too) – hate them.
I know it was his first game with maybe 1 training session but it looks like Ajax will be laughing all the way to the bank on that performance. Scored then non existent till subbed off. Definitely a walking red card as well if his petulance is anything to go on
Had Ptsd flashbacks of 2007-2012 in particular where we would absolutely play chelsea and man u off the park only to somehow lose..usually heavily. Mourinho and Fergie had Wenger’s number after a while and he was too idealistic to change it even though he knew better. They just let us have the ball and eventually Drogba when it was Chelsea would just bully a goal and if it was united the same old counter song and dance. This was different because the team has gone so far from that just seeing us dominate and play without fear at a tough… Read more »
Lokonga gave the ball away on their 2nd goal. When it was 1-1 and we had the momentum. Really bad mistake which got us throwing everything at the game to be caught by another counter attack.
I hope that’s the end of experimenting with him at 6. Play Zinchenko there, at least he’s played there regularly for Ukraine and at youth levels.
Lokongo played well. He lost the ball. Players lose the ball. It happens. What happens afterwards wasn’t his fault.
Heck, zinchenko was way out of position on Man Uniteds first goal.
agreed!
and gabriel is also at fault for the first goal. if he is gonna foul, do it to prevent the pass
This is where we are unlucky. Gabriel cleverly fouled the opponent but ref waved play on.
FINALLY SOMEONE SPEAK THE TRUTH EVERYONE ELSE IS OVERLOOKING. Gabriel is a liability. He got abt the same amount of red cards and cards overall as Xhaka
Zinchenko is only out of position because Gabriel dived in unnecessarily too
Gabriel dived in unnecessarily because Lokonga was not where he’s supposed to be.
lets not run the young man down for being asked to do a difficult job he has very limited experience at doing. he’s not granit xhaka.
I thought this game would suit Tierney.
Haha, he loved it!
I agree
The other Tierney certainly had a huge impact
Maybe, but leaving the duty of bringing the ball out to Sambi alone might have cost us the platform we used to build up the attack. As it was, though, having that control didn’t deliver enough in the end. 🙁
Paul loved it
Poor result. Could and should have been a draw at least. Besides some players underperforming, I thought Jesus was the best player on the pitch. But our midfield got battered. I would argue it was a mistake to leave lokonga on. Why not bring zinchenko to midfield? Lokonga was too green for this match. Great talent but not ready for these matches
Our midfield didn’t get ‘battered’! Lokonga was doing ok, maybe overhitting the ball a bit, but the game was lost on the uncharacteristic ‘high line’ that fed right into the hands of United.
I see a lot of people complaining about the high line but you can’t play a high press without a high line. See how we penned them from 45-65, that’s possible because our CBs were almost in their half cutting off challenging the first pass out.
Football’s not really your game is it mate.
Despite being gutted at the loss, I am encouraged by the performance. When we scored I was sure we’d go on to win. We were sucker punched though and this team (which was much better tran United) will learn from it. I’m also happy Saka finally opened his account. Onward and upward!
will arteta learn from it?
Arteta learns all the time. That’s the great thing about having a genuine thinker and student of the game at the helm.
i guess we’ll have to wait for 300 games for the title then?
Probably. One of the disadvantages of not being owned by a nation state with unlimited wealth and no moral compass
Arteta is a good tactician and passionate about the club. I don’t think he will be pleased with that.
So f-ing refreshing to hear a cinaidered opinion. Thabkyou sir.
Not sure what cinaidered means, but you’re very welcome.
Spot on, completely agree. The performance was excellent, fearless and always looking to attack. Plenty to learn from and build on and I trust Arteta and his coaches to do a good job.
Hope Arteta and the defence learn a valuable lesson today. That’s just inexperience – Arteta with the triple sub (including a debut) and defence for playing a criminally high line when that was Utd’s only real weapon. The team played well for the rest of the game, some really great passing and interchanges. Also, you’d have to say we should have done better with the changes we created. Still, 6 games played. 15 points. Top of the league. Let’s not lose perspective. Gooners!
Didn’t feel like 3-1 and utd certainly didn’t deserve such a flattering scoreline. VAR needs to be scrapped immediately and forever.
…until a dodgy offside goal on the 93rd minute snatches two points from us.
VAR has more advantages than disadvantages; all I want is a tweak to exclude what the referee has a clear view of… like Ødegaard ‘s tackle today. He saw it, decided it wasn’t a foul. That should have been that.
he also saw the foul on saka in the box in the first half and decided that wasn’t a foul, wasn’t reviewed by var either, and then they score. absolute incompetence. any one of us would be fired from our jobs if we performed so poorly week in week out.
‘That should have been that’ is the exact reason why VAR definitely takes away from the game rather than adds to it. They interfere with actions during the game that they shouldn’t and force the on field ref to make a decision that should need to be reviewed. Not only that but having to do so in front of all the home support biases (sic?) the decision in their favour. Do you honestly think that the Ødegaard tackle was a clear and obvious error? But, alright, I concede that if we gained points from a positive VAR review then I’d… Read more »
Without VAR they will blame every bad decisions on not being able to see in real time. With VAR they can’t…and we can truly see these referees for WHATEVER they are. To be fair in the PL there are some really good officials, but then imho there are a bunch of ROTTEN ones too, starting from the head. For me, no matter what team is playing I just want to see a fair match and fair calls. But there are too many bad / scandalous ones at the moment and these calls are affecting the outcome of results, top 4,… Read more »
VAR is fine technology, what is a problem is who and how it is used, as proven by all the errors – now acknowledged – over the weekend.
Offside goals are not dodgy. It’s either offside or not. What is dodgy are these subjective decisions that seem to go against us time after time. When was the last time VAR gave us an advantage apart from offside?
Never thought I’d say this but more refs need to be like Michael Oliver. He gave Forest a pen yesterday, VAR directed him to the screen & he told them he was sticking to his original decision. Was it the mythical “clear & obvious” error today? No so get your nose out & fuck off back to your Dominos order Lee Mason
Guarantee that MOTD glosses over the VAR decision. Definitely not a clear and obvious error when you have to view it from 15 different angles.
arteta subs: 0/10
Maybe 3 subs at once was a bit much but he had to roll the dice in my opinion, despite being the better team we needed something else.
still think arteta is weak tactically after 101 games in charge
OK he’s not an ‘elite’ coach, whatever that even means but he’s by no means tactically weak. If you need to chase a result you need players to do that and by making those subs he was doing just that.
“after 101 games in charge” like that’s an entire career or something
I never want Arteta as a coach, and didn’t dream he’d get us to the level we’re at now, but it’s funny – some of the arguments people make against him are so weak it sort of ends up confirming how good he is
*wanted
Exactly.It is his entire career. Gets entirely too much criticism when he is barely a novice himself.
We’re top of the fucking league.
Remember Webger often doing similar in our heyday
The guys who came on today will play on Thursday night. They needed a few minutes.
Exactly, they needed some minutes and people taken off needed some caring. I am okay with the performance but people losing perspective is baffling.
They were subs out of the Wenger handbook.
All attack leaving no balance or shape. A bit of panic when not needed as we were playing well.
At that point, it is a gamble, period. Even when it has the desired result, it is still a gamble.
I’d really like to see us rest Gabriel… that’s two major mistakes in two games. One to let mitrovic in, and the other today going off his feet. Is it possible we can play a back 4 of Tomi, White, Saliba, Tierney? Feels like it would be more solid defensively. and then Zinchenko at DM.
Gabriel is lucky he’s the only left footed cb at the club.
United struggles against average teams because average teams sit back. Arsenal play gung-ho and are split with one pass over the top. Was always going to happen. Heck, it happened against Leicester. Very predictable. And when we lost the ball we stood around; didn’t swarm them. This is why a holding midfielder is so necessary. Until we figure that out (and Partey is not the answer with his injuries) we will struggle against top teams. Also, defenders need to defend sometimes. Not just play forward in midfield positions. We’ve seen Arsenal lose like this numerous times. And we never learn.
It’s hard not to hate ManU… lucky bastards… again.
Arseblog, why are thumbs up and down restricted? It was always interesting to see what people thought.
It’s just you, they work fine.
Not just him…. since yesterday thumbs up and down seems limited to +2 or -2
I have to spam the thumbs up button to get it to register
areas we lost the game:-
-their couch was superior
-officials were with man united
-united were aggressive
-our defense was poor for their counter attacks
-big gaps in our midfield
They spent 100m on their couch whereas we got ours from a car boot sale.
My couch was indeed quite uncomfortable today. I’ll get a new one this week, but we’ll need more fans to purchase quality sofas from DFS so make Arsenal win every week.
Only losers resort to typos to win an
arguments.
Coach ×1000
Hey Bolg. Why you so upset? We all knew VAR was going to FK us over before the game. Nothing new.
Can someone tell our attacking midfielders when to shoot and when to pass?
So many opportunities to shoot but decided fancy passes
VAR is dispicable and ruining football. We were by far the better side today. It is a long season and 15 points at this stage is excellent.
Saka and Martinelli were phenomenal. Xhaka solid too. Very promising Vieira debut.
15 points is fantastic when City & Spurs play each other next Saturday so will drop points before we’ve even played
We can’t blame VAR. Truth is we defended like shit towards the end and pushed forward too urgently when we still had enough time to play more carefully. We got punished as a result.
Arteta will learn from this. The 3 subs were too de-stabilising to our team which had been clearly on top all game.
Mikel probably had half an eye on Thursday with those subs + the fact Zinny hasn’t played since Bournemouth & Ødegaard left his ankle in the care of McGinn on Wednesday night would’ve also factored in. If he could go back then he’d have probably drip fed them in rather than all 3 at once but hindsight is a wonderful thing & he obviously sensed United were there for the taking & we could overwhelm them
I think it would have been better if we had never scored the disallowed goal. It took a bit of the wind off from our sails.
Normally I’d agree with this but I think Utd were more in control at that point so an Arsenal goal would have probably taken the wind from their sails instead.
I think it would’ve been better if refs had the bollocks to stick with the original decision rather then being coerced into changing it by a bloke eating Dominos in a room 200 miles away
It was clearly a foul by Odegaard in the build up. But the ref didn’t call it at the time. So should not be VAR’d. Goal should have stood.
I watched the Brighton highlights earlier & there was a similar tackle by Tielemans in the build up to Leicester’s opener & that wasn’t sent to VAR. As Jesse Marsch said yesterday, it’s consistency & respect that managers & fans want, we’d be able to take decisions & fuck ups if everything was consistent rather then looking at something & going “Would we have got that if it was Eriksen on Ødegaard”? Because you can guarantee the goal would’ve stood for United if that was the case & Ødegaard would’ve been getting called weak or that he’d gone looking for… Read more »
Played so well but didn’t take our chances. Missed Partey badly as his positional awareness is way ahead of anyone else we have. I thought MO8 was poor in the key moments. Should have scored and couple of times took too long to make a decision when on the ball in the box.
I thought Ode was great. As were most of our lads. We bossed Utd most of the game.
Excellent performance for the most part. If I had to criticise a player slightly it would be Zinchenko. He was very good at times but seemed too slow and out of position, and that silly flick he did annoyed me. No need to showboat, just keep it simple and be a bit more aware of dangers.
Ramsdale had some slightly nervy moments also which he could’ve avoided.
Awful scoreline. Thought our performance all in all was more than decent. Lucky United, as so often. McTominay an absolute disgrace to football.
We’ll be back.
Odegaard didn’t have a great game today with his decisions. He’s been great recently but that missed shot summed up todays game. Obviously that great pass that led to the goal was one of his highlights. Not that the result was his fault at all. I said not getting a DM would hurt us and we didn’t have that cover today. But their goals were our own fault today as a defensive collective. Time to get back in the horse and beat Everton
We had 3 really bad lapses in concentration today, which cost us dearly. Furthermore VAR is just plain ridiculous. Who’s to say what the game had looked like if we had gotten the goal we deserved.
We had the most ball possession and played better than United. Martinelli is a constant threat – the same with Jesus. Great players. I thought Vieira looked really promising.
Just hope they can compartmentalize this loss and move on. Lots to proud of and we are still top of the league
And Cuntinez not getting a yellow on his 1st intervention stamping on on Jesus’ foot after less than 2 min is sooooo ridiculous
Agreed
Perhaps if Jesus could convert one of the many chances that were created the result may have been different?
Sixteen shots and three on target is not what we paid 45 million for – I know it’s not just on him but he needs to convert more.
A striker is remembered for goals not fancy footwork…
Jesus was one of our best players. Constantly bullied Utd and worked super hard.
Let’s be honest–the ref was 100% right to overrule Martinelli’s goal. Odegaard clearly committed the foul. Let’s not blame a defeat on a correct decision.
Overall, we regressed to passing, passing, passing…without really threatening. Quite a few ineffective crosses that gave Jesus nothing to feed off. I think there’s a case for starting with Nketiah, or at least bringing him on sooner (instead of Martinelli or Saka).
At the start of this season the refs made a clear statement to all clubs that more physical contact would be allowed. Even before this season, body-checking or making contact with a player without winning the ball is not an automatic foul – if it was, they would’ve awarded us a penalty for Maguire laying hands on Nketiah.
It was a borderline decision, even the commentators thought he was gonna allow it judging by how long he had to look at the replay.
He pushed him over. Clearly.
Sorry but that’s just not true is it. There absolutely was contact but he didn’t clearly push him, if you want an example of pushing see McTominay on Martinelli in first half.
A lesson to learn. When we equalised we should play a bit safer football. We got caught on two very similar situations with two goals by Rashford.
Positive thing: I think our team doesn’t act like sissies anymore. They were tough, stood the ground and were quite ruthless with ManU. Didn’t allowed to get intimidated by home side.
Little badassisness is more than welcome.
We played well and reminded me of Wenger ball days.
Tactically we messed up with the three subs. Maybe a more seasoned manager wouldn’t have made that change.
I’m disappointed but not super disappointed, we’re a growing and learning team, manager too. Hopefully we can kick on from this.
Also, I have a dreaded feeling that not buying another midfielder will haunt us.
that the officiating standards are the talking point after EVERY SINGLE MATCH in the PL this season (regardless of who is playing who) tells you everything you need to know about how corrupt and incompetent these officials are.
One of those days.
United are cunts and always will be, no matter what.
Have always been a close second behind the Spuds in terms of a club I love to see do badly and wish they could lose every single game until they get relegated from the Northern Twat Pub League.
The foundations are there. I think the kind of intricate football this team wants to play in the final third needs the front three and odegaard to develop a near telepathic connection. I hope they’ll be allowed to get there, cause there hasn’t been a more promising group in a while. United really just staked the game on beating the offside trap, if we’d made the possession count, it would’ve been a win.
Will these officials ever be held accountable? The premier league should be ashamed of themselves
Thought Ramsdale could have gone out on the first goal to block the angle. Shaky pass in the second half too, could have cost a goal
Rat-faced twat/10 for Neville on the commentary trying to stir up controversy for the Martinelli(?) “rake” on the United man.
When Martin Tyler brilliantly boxed him into a corner by bringing up the time he kicked Reyes off the pitch, Neville got to rewrite history. The cunt.
It was Sambi not Martinelli but even then, looked like Bruno make a meal of it. Thought it was disrespectful of Neville to say he never kicked a dead man(especially when there’s video footage of him booting Reyes all over the pitch) then chuckle about it
Thanks, yes Sambi not Martinelli!
Yeah Fezec, I had to applaud Martin Tyler in that moment – he made Gary Neville choke on his own hypocrisy
Zinchenko is more at fault for their second than Sambi in my book. Sambi split the two United players well and Zinny was open in space to pick his head up and pick out a pass moving forward but he tried to be cute with the flick back and put Sambi in a bad position to chase after it and give the ball away. Should’ve never been put in that position and we were looking dangerous at the time. Huge momentum shift. On another note, something has to be done about McTominay in this league. Doesn’t make sense how he… Read more »
THIS! We tried to be fancy on the pitch way too often and it cost us points. At one point after we went 1-0 down, we had like 34 touches in their box and they had 8 in ours.
Too much sizzle and not enough steak.
I thought we played well today. Any other club bar Manure, the first goal would’ve counted. We need to stop making teams counter attack us so easily. More positives than negatives.
Anyone else concerned about Ramsdale? I thought he was poor for the first today and is not having a great start to the season. Also poor form tail end of last season.
Besides that I’m not overly disappointed about today, thought we were excellent for most of it, and deserved to win.
A wee bit. He’s looking a bit “chaotic” when under pressure.
His passing was fantastic out of the box and he made a good save or two (albeit after his own error).
If it was ManU who scored that goal it wouldn’t have been dissalowed
Lol…clear foul by our so called captain who disappears during big matches like Ozil. And who also miss a sitter,
Y’all lovers of Arteta, this is just the beginning of disappointing results,
Like fuck, you guys making excuse for Lokonga…like this same player who cost us the Brighton game last season before Elneny was brought to replace him. Like seriously, you guys aren’t ambitious enough…no wonders we haven’t won the league for almost 20 years 😂. Keep on making same mistake, want to play in the big league and don’t want to spend the money to do so. If we don’t spend we won’t qualify for the champions league. That’s it… I’m tired of this merry go round with this club. I hate the fact Gabriel Jesus had to work his socks… Read more »
No wonder there’s atheists
The foul on Odegaard would have been fair enough in some matches but was an anomaly today in light of clutching and grabbing that ManU was getting away with. Thought Sambi played well enough. The intended recipient of his pass that led to the second goal (Jesus) was as much to blame, but the real culprits were the defenders trying to trap Rashford offside. Was the failure to mark Eriksen on the third United goal was a missed assignment due to the change in formation?
Yeah I think Saliba has judged his role as the ‘sweeper’ well so far this season, but in this game he tried to hold a line about 5 or 10 yards too high
Really impressed by Saka. He is one hell of a player. Hopefully he gets a good rest. We played well and lost and tbh it’s my preferred way of losing. We imposed ourselves and know where the dangers. We’re up a level from last season and our summer business is a key part of why that is.
Hopefully now his scored, it’ll take the weight off his shoulders, his been trying to force it in the hunt for a goal. The defeat will hurt him but at least his getting a goal bonus for his 21st birthday tomorrow
This is the most biased ratings I’ve ever seen. I am an Arsenal fan and a day one but if the players are poor don’t put these high ratings when we lost by so many goals. Gabriel was at fault on the first goal with his rash lunge and got beaten badly. Plus he struggled just like saliba in the high back line
Yeah I thought both our cb’s were not at their best today.
Fu*k we were good but a tad naive I’ll take that performance added to a bit of savvy frome hereon in ! Played confidentially only lapses in concentration cost us no need to panic Let’s kick on now we are looking at a good season
Agree with loose cannon. How can you not score against a 12/13 men wall with mo included.
It is Wenger allover again.
It reminds me of the days when Drogba, etc, had the freedom of the pitch to score .
How can u not score with acres of space,time and no defender in sight.
Mu were like a cobra poised to strike on the counter with a gunner hdl.
Xhaka can be played at DM for a short spell with Zinchenko or Fabio playing the more advanced midfield role. That is what I would do if I were in Arteta’s shoes. Or we can try Zinchenko at DM and he too has played there before. We have Zinny Fabio Ode Smith R, that’s four good options besides Xhaka for those ACM roles. We do have options -it’s just that it seems we are using bottom-of-the-barrel when talented but inexperienced young Lokonga starts
Arteta has said it many times: the youth in the team will make mistakes, its part of the learning process. So we have to accept they will stuff up from time to time. The goal being as the team grows and matures those mistakes become less and less. I am not too worried with the loss. The team is going to have those in the season, whilst losing to MANU blows big chunky goats I would rather that then lose to the teams in the bottom half of the comp which can really dent a teams and supporters confidence. Plenty… Read more »
Unpopular opinion, I know, but I’ll say it: Ramsdale is average. I simply don’t see anything in him which Leno didn’t do it better. Maybe the fact he’s younger and slightly better with his footwork…but just slightly, he’s no Ederson. Antony’s goal was very soft too concede, all he had to do was to stay on his feet, it was obvious that a left footed will curl it wide. Instead he just went down easily and made Antony’s mind to shoot. That , an many others before, shows he’s inexperienced and too nervous, agitated, he doesn’t have a calming presence… Read more »
PGMOL said sorry Sunday to two different decisions from Saturday involving VAR saying they got it wrong. I watched a bunch of games and every game I watched had a poor VAR decision. The decisions on the pitch are better than VAR.
Also United lose that game badly if that first goal stands. They couldn’t dominate possession and when they had possession they looked so bad. They are a very counter attacking team. Martinelli’s goal should of ended them.
United didn’t have to dominate posession. They just took advantage of poor Arsenal defending. Successful teams can play poorly but they usually take their chances. Aspiring teams (like Arsenal) often play well but don’t take their chances. if you don’t take your chances you don’t deserve to take anything from the game. Why is ‘a counter attacking team’ a pejorative in your cramped little cosmos pilgrim? The ‘Invincibles’ were a counter attacking team