Arsenal lost their third straight Premier League match on Sunday as Manchester United completed the double over them with a 2–1 win at the Emirates. Danny Welbeck smashed in the winner in the 81st minute, but Antonio Valencia was the hero for United with a goal and an assist.
With the win, United kept pace with local rivals Manchester City who had edged Tottenham Hotspur 3–2 earlier in the day. And for the second time this season, Manchester did the double over North London (Aug. 28).
Arsenal continues to languish in fifth place, five points back of fourth place Chelsea in the battle for a Champions League spot. Fortunately for the Gunners, both Liverpool and Newcastle lost on Saturday.
Red Devils Start Well
With shaky confidence comes tentative play, and Arsenal, despite being the hosts with a 7–2–1 (win, draw, loss) record at home, saw the visitors take control of the match in the first half.
The ageless Ryan Giggs was in fine form, running at the Arsenal defenders and settling his side down with his experience.
United defender Phil Jones seemed to roll his ankle as Walcott ran at him down the left flank. The former Blackburn Rovers product had to be stretchered off shortly after the quarter-hour mark.
Walcott continued to struggle for Arsenal, misplaying passes and not showing much composure with the ball. On the bright side for the Gunners, teenager Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain looked very threatening down the right flank.
In first half injury time, Giggs was given enough time and space to feed a perfect cross from the left and Valencia powered the header home to the bottom corner. Valencia is not known for his aerial abilities, but he fought off Thomas Vermaelen to give United a deserved lead.
United was showing greater conviction and self-belief whereas Arsenal’s attacks would fizzle out near goal.
Gunners Respond
Arsenal started the second half brightly and created at least two chances that should’ve been converted before United got their wits about them.
Thomas Rosicky weaved his way into the box but instead of shooting passed to Robin Van Persie with United’s defenders and keeper Anders Lindegaard scrambling. Van Persie got the ball on his trustworthy left foot but blew his shot high and wide.
Shortly thereafter, Rosicky had time to settle and tee up a shot from well inside the 18-yard box. His hard shot was blocked by a United defender, partially with his arm.
Arsenal was doing everything they could to get back in the game but United had the counterattack working well and Welbeck nearly put his team ahead, but his slow roller was cleared off the line brilliantly by Per Mertesacker.
Arsenal got the equalizer in the 71st minute when Oxlade-Chamberlain threaded a pass to Van Persie. The Dutchman’s left-footer found the far side of the net past Lindegaard. The play was started by some find defending from Laurent Koscielny.
But shortly thereafter, Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger made a dubious substitution, which Van Persie was clearly unhappy about. Wenger replaced Oxlade-Chamberlain with the struggling little Russian Andrei Arshavin. The move would come back to haunt the Gunners.
In his post-match press conference relayed on Arsenal’s Twitter feed, Wenger spoke about the questionable substitution: “I can understand the fans were upset about the substitution, especially when it doesn’t work. He [Oxlade-Chamberlain] had started to fatigue.”
Less than 10 minutes after the substitution, Valencia cleverly wove into the Arsenal box, played a give-and-go with Park Ji-Sung, and then found Welbeck with a short pass. Welbeck fired home the winner. Arshavin looked very poor defending Valencia on the play, but Arsenal also didn’t have any natural fullbacks in their squad.
“We should have rammed home our advantage in the first half, and in the first 15 minutes of the second half they had three great chances and missed them all, so we rode our luck,” Sir Alex Ferguson told Sky Sports 1.
“Winning after City had won was the important thing but we’ve done it in the right way. We were really adventurous, positive, and had a great belief in ourselves.”
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