Goals: Arsenal: Lacazette (49). Manchester United: Valencia (5), Lingard (11, 61).
Man of the Match/Goat of the Game: Our best player? Lacazette had a terrific performance, played with passion, but should’ve scored more. Our worst player? Laurent Koscielny produced two monumental errors that cost the game.
Referee Rating: Andre Marriner 2. I gave him two rather than zero because he was right to send Pogba off for his studs up challenge and stamping on Bellerin and he was right to finally yellow card Rojo. Where did he fall short? He should’ve yellow carded Matic earlier in the match, he should’ve awarded a penalty when Rojo hauled down Lacazette in the area (Drury and Burley, the commentators I listened to, completely ignored this, focusing on Lacazette’s attempt to get a foot to the ball and de Gea’s save. Rojo’s challenge was worse than the Burnley decision we got midweek), and he should’ve awarded penalties for challenges on Welbeck and Bellerin in the penalty area.
Manager Rating: Wenger 7. After the early implosion the decision to replace the injured Mustafi with Iwobi was a bold move, but one that gave the team the extra muscle to attack United’s goal. Giroud never really added much to the attack and I would’ve considered bringing on Wilshere instead.
Arsenal performance: The opening twelve minutes were a disaster. Two giveaways and United ruthlessly punished the Gunners. The remainder of the game was an Arsenal tidal wave that looked capable of destroying Arsenal, but United held on and capitalized on another Arsenal error to seal the victory.
Arsenal literally threw the kitchen sink at United, but were only able to score once. A combination of poor final passes, lack of creativity, poor finishing, poor refereeing, desperate defending, and sensational goalkeeping saw United get the win. United parked the bus after the early lead and managed to hold onto the win despite Arsenal’s overwhelming performance.
Conclusion: Any chance of eventually overtaking Manchester City evaporated and so the focus must be to finish in the top four. The fact that this was a self-inflicted loss is a bitter reminder that mistakes against top teams will be punished. There were positives in their performance and these will need to be harnessed to play better over the rest of the season.
Player Ratings:
Cech 6: He will feel he could’ve done better on the first goal, which rolled between his legs, but he had little chance on the other shots. He made one good save off Lingard, which deflected off the upright.
Koscielny 3: I was a beginning player of seven years old when I was told never to pass the ball across the face of the goal, even if I was twenty yards upfield. Laurent’s cross field pass lacked enough pace, was intercepted and so began the disaster. Later, he managed to get back and stop a breakaway from Pogba, but instead of holding his position he took a little nibble and Pogba skipped over him and found a wide open Lingard. Two fatal errors. He did try and attack several times and won a couple of corners.
Mustafi 4: Hung onto the ball too long, a poor second touch and his pocket was picked. United scored moments later and Skhodran ended up injured. If he hadn’t been hurt, I wonder how the rest of the game would’ve turned out.
Monreal 6: He was relatively solid, although on the opening goal he should’ve continued to stick to Valencia. Valencia got the ball back and was wide open.
Bellerin 7: Hector had one good shot on goal, one penalty shout, and was stamped by Pogba. He looked reluctant to attack the flank more.
Xhaka 4: He definitely should’ve scored near the end of the first half, when he had the goal at his mercy and shot wide. He took several weak shots at goal in the second half and was culpable on United’s third goal, losing track of Lingard, who had a tap in. Unfortunately, Cazorla doesn’t look like he’ll be back this season to push Granit to play better.
Ramsey 7: He made a great run and collected an assist on the only goal of the match. He also had a great chance to score, but a United defender deflected the shot at the last moment. He worked hard, but seemed to run out of ideas at times.
Kolasinac 7: He had one good chance, which he hit straight at de Gea. Couldn’t cross the ball consistently into the box and he wasn’t able to impose himself as much as he could’ve.
Ozil 7: Mesut didn’t go missing. He worked hard from start to finish, both offensively and defensively. He was at the heart of many of our attacks, but little came off for him.
Lacazette 8: Lacazette played well. He had a number of chances, some where he should’ve pulled the trigger earlier, some where he should’ve scored, some where de Gea made world class saves. He hit the woodwork several times and he finally scored our only goal. He was hauled down once as well but Marriner saw nothing.
Sanchez 5: He made a great pass to find Ramsey leading up to our goal. For most of the game Alexis was wasteful and made poor decisions. He still had great moments, was fouled often, and played with energy, but his performance lacked that killer edge.
Substitutes:
Iwobi 6: Alex played well until he got inside the box. Then his shots were either wild or straight at de Gea. When he came on at first and added some zip to our attacks, I thought that maybe he was ready to take that step up to greatness that I feel is within his grasp. Maybe another day.
Giroud 5: He had little impact and gave the ball away several times.
Welbeck 6: He added some zip to the attack and should’ve been awarded a penalty near the end. He should’ve come on earlier.