Arsenal closed the gap on league leaders Liverpool to seven points with a 2-0 win over Manchester United engineered by set-piece coach Nicolas Jover.
Despite losing talismanic centre-back Gabriel to injury before the match, the Gunners, who’ve earned a reputation for their prowess from corners, pressed home that advantage with Jurrien Timber and William Saliba on the scoresheet.
Manchester United did well to frustrate Arsenal in the first half, restricting Mikel Arteta’s men to a couple of half chances. However, the home side stepped things up after the break and ran out deserved winners.
The manager was delighted by his team’s game management and the way they let the shackles off after some half-time tactical tweaks.
Here’s what he had to say when he faced questions from BBC Match of the Day…
On stepping things up in the second half…
Yes, we certainly did. It’s a special day. It’s 500 games in this incredible stadium. We wanted to celebrate against a side that obviously we have a lot of history. Incredible, the way we responded, the way we played the second half, the goals we scored, two set pieces, we could have scored from open play many more, kept the clean sheet. I’m very happy because we lost two massive players for us in the backline, Jakub came in, Alex came in and the team really responded. Really pleased with everything.
On what he said at half-time…
We had to adjust one or two things in the defensive part from what we were doing, especially we had to do the simple things better, we gave away too many simple balls, we found advantages and gave the ball away, so we never got that dominance and attack the spaces and be able to get together so we can counter-press them. We did that much better in the second half, the game opened up a little bit, there were a lot of balls in the final third and we looked a real threat.
On restricting United to minimal chances…
Yeah, at the end, after the throw-in, we gave them that free-kick that they could have scored and then you need someone like David to make the save. I think it was 2-0 at the time but very pleased. It’s a jot to play in this stadium with that energy, something incredible.
On whether this was Arsenal’s most effective game from a set-piece standpoint…
Well, one of the best, we could have scored more but it was the same a few times this season. I’m very pleased with that, the team has to have the capacity to score from many different situations, many different phases, today we could have scored from open play, short counters, stable build-ups, we did it at the end with two set pieces, great.
On winning three league games in a row for the first time this season…
We have to do our business, continue to play at the level we’re playing and continue to win matches, what the rest do, we’ll see.
On becoming the first Arsenal manager to win four games in a row against Manchester United…
Ok, thank you so much!
Brilliant result. We looked a bit shaky and slow in the first half, but turned up for the second half and got the result. I really don’t feel comfortable when Zinchenko is defending for us at 1-0. I hope Califiori is back soon. This result will also give a a mental boost going into the Fa cup match.
United’s record at Ashburton Grove since Lingaard said “it was their dance ground” on December 2nd, 2017
2-0 L
2-0 L
0-0 D
3-1 L
3-2 L
3-1 L
2-0 L (Today)
loathe that guy and his silly dance. Great win today!
Four consecutive wins against Man U is impressive, even if they’re not the Fergie Man U of old. Still a club with more resources than us and a menacing stadium to play away at. If you’d told me 20 years ago we’d one day beat that lot 4 times in a row and it won’t even be anywhere near the most impressive thing we do in that time, I’d probably say you’ve gone mad. It’s sad that the two set piece goals are probably going to be most of what people take from this game, because we played brilliantly in… Read more »
These arbiters of football morality are as hypocritical as they are tiresome. In the days when Wenger’s team would lose to jammy set pieces despite playing nice football, these same people would gleefully stroke their chin and talk about how Arsenal don’t like it up ’em and how real champions need to show more mettle. Whatever it takes to rile us up, or from rival fans, whatever it takes to try to make us feel worse. It’s all a bunch of noise. In the end they’re here for the eyeballs, the engagement, that’s their currency, and that means baiting and… Read more »
100
An astute and perceptive diagnosis Doctor Gooner, regarding the pitiful and hilarious Stoke City comparisons, one is reminded of the old adage that sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
P.S. I thought it was a decent refereeing performance for once.
Way to keep it seasonal. Chapeau.
Amorim really wanted this one. He really really did. It would’ve laid down some marker for his tenure to get one over Arteta at his own stadium. He packed his team full of his jammiest, hardest running, most disciplined players. No Casemiro, no Rashford, no Eriksen. He played one winger and 5 midfielders. His team set out to defend the space in front of their goal, double/triple Saka, hand picked Malacia to make him run backward and even put Mazraoui there to give them one more left footed defender vs. Saka’s left foot…. and after all that defending, try to… Read more »
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Amen brother
👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
The big irony is that the media are painting us as the “Stoke” in this situation!
Nice write up, well said. If it wasn’t Man Utd I’d have some compassion for them, because that was us too a few years ago under Emery. But it is Man U and those self entitled pricks can go off and do whatever it is they do when they don’t get what they feel entitled to, which hilariously is pretty much all the time in recent times.