Arsenal 2-3 Man Utd: An awful afternoon demands immediate improvement

Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction – Video

I wonder if this is a moment in the season that might align with a moment in yesterday’s match. Having played pretty well, and gone ahead through a Lisandro Martinez own goal, Arsenal got a case of the yips.

We’d enjoyed 60% possession, taken 6 shots to United’s 2, and given ourselves a platform at home to go on and assert real control. Instead, between that moment and half-time, it was like we felt all the pressure of this title race, and hit the self-destruct button. United had more of the ball, our pass success rate went from 85% before the goal to 65% afterwards, and we paid the price by gifting them an equaliser.

Bruno Fernandes twice had a sight of goal, one he put wide on his own, the other after a tiny touch from William Saliba in the box, but all of a sudden Arsenal were open at the back, and rattled. Then the equaliser. Maybe the pass from Saliba to Martin Zubimendi isn’t great, but his attempt to play back to David Raya was terrible, delivering it instead straight to Bryan Mbuemo who rounded the keeper to make it 1-1.

Mistakes happen. It’s how you react to them that’s important, and I don’t think we reacted well at all. Between that goal and half-time our pass success rate dropped even further, to a miserable 46%, a long way from where a team as technically accomplished as this one should be. We didn’t do the basics, on and off the ball, anywhere close to well enough.

The second half began in a way which reminded me of the Liverpool game. When you wanted a reaction from Arsenal after the break, we just didn’t get it. United bossed it with 82% possession from the restart until Patrick Dorgu’s outstanding strike made it 2-1. I do think there’s a mix of United getting the bounce of the ball in that move and Arsenal struggling to make a proper challenge in midfield, and I think if Zubimendi continues to challenge rather than stopping to claim a handball that wasn’t, he might have done enough to put the United man off. But he didn’t, and you have to say that was a hell of a strike which left Raya beaten all ends up.

Again though, what’s the reaction? Well, from the bench Mikel Arteta decided a quadruple change was what was needed, taking off Martin Odegaard, Gabriel Jesus, Piero Hincapie and Zubimendi for Eberechi Eze, Viktor Gyokeres, Ben White and Mikel Merino. Some might look at that and applaud the decisiveness, and the willingness to change, by taking off players who under-performed on the day. For me, while fully accepting the need to change something, making four subs at once felt more desperate than strategic. There’s a reason you so rarely see a manager make that many changes at one time, typically it’s in a cup scenario when a game is already won, or even a friendly.

Obviously Merino got an equaliser later on, but I don’t think any of the incoming players really helped improve us. Shifting Jurrien Timber out to left-back basically killed any progressive play down that side, and for me that was a mistake; Gyokeres put himself about a bit but was just as clumsy as Jesus; if Odegaard had a really poor game then Eze’s attacking contribution was no better; and I think the introduction of Noni Madueke as the final change was I don’t think was at all effective.

Personally, having seen him score a great goal against Man City earlier in the season, and with 9 goals this season to his name, I’d have put Gabriel Martinelli on. Maybe there’s a physical issue we’re not aware of, but the Madueke change didn’t work at all. Just a few minutes before, Bukayo Saka had tested the keeper with a shot to the near post that was well saved, but he was moved to the left when the former Chelsea man came on, and while he wasn’t having a stellar game by any means, was rendered more or less anonymous by that change. Especially given the issue with Timber over there anyway.

The manager introduced a level of imbalance with his substitutions that really was not helpful at all. Madueke got his head down and tried to make something happen, but nothing did. He was quick, but over-excited. The end product wasn’t there. He ran the ball out of play more than once, and after Merino had poked home to make it 2-2 – a goal that should have earned us a point at least – he was guilty of that skittishness again in the final third.

After great work from Saliba, Madueke had a chance to put a ball across the United box, instead a heavy touch gave them a goal kick. From there, we were guilty again of losing challenges in midfield, and Matheus Cunha used Gabriel as a shield to curl the ball beyond the despairing dive of Raya. 3-2 United, just minutes after we’d equalised, and again we were architects of our own downfall. We didn’t muster a shot between then and the final whistle, and when it went, you couldn’t escape the feeling that’s what a performance like that deserved.

Afterwards, I expected Arteta to be more agitated, and I suspect internally he was much more so than he let on. Publicly, he backed his players who remain 4 points clear at the top of the table, saying:

I think it’s the first time sitting here this season at home and we lost a game, so it’s part of the journey to winning and if not, nobody will lose football matches. It’s how we react to that and I am very convinced because I know those players in that dressing room and how much we want it that we’re going to react immediately.

Very, very disappointed obviously, but it’s a moment, especially after losing, and the joy and everything that those players are giving us, and me in particular, to take responsibility myself and be very close to them because it’s exactly what they deserve.

That’s a choice, and I can respect that. He knows his players better than I do, and he likely feels that in public he needs to take an arm around the shoulder approach. What is said privately, and on the training ground is another matter, and I think there will be some home truths spoken. I don’t exclude Arteta from that either, because I think it’s clear he got plenty wrong yesterday too. The individual performances were not good enough, the collective performance was not good enough, and the management of the game from the sideline was not good enough. That should be the starting point for any discussions they have about this and any analysis of this game.

The broader issue for me is that it feels like something has to change about the way we play for us to find our spark again. You can point at individuals all day, but when to a man every attacking or creative player was below par to varying degrees, you have to look at the system or the structures. I think Arsenal have a big problem at centre-forward these days, but I don’t think that’s 100% the fault of the players we have available to us.

Our wide men are struggling, there’s a dearth of midfield creativity with Odegaard unable to provide that craft we know he’s capable of, and Eze just as peripheral when he does come on. I wrote last week about the need to get the attack firing and the individual stats of players being well below what you’d expect from a team sitting top of the table, and I think that’s a rapidly growing concern. When you couple that issue with a drop in defensive standards, you get a day like yesterday.

I’d love to tell you I know what that solution is but beyond a huge desire to see us play with a bit more speed, especially when we get into the opposition half, I can’t really say. That’s Mikel Arteta’s job to figure it out, to find some combinations that work consistently, because right now – at least in the Premier League – we don’t seem to have that. And maybe that’s what it is. Maybe it’s this competition. It’s the pressure that exists in every aspect of this campaign for Arsenal to go all the way that is exerting itself on us and inhibiting performances because we’ve been underwhelming for quite a while now.

But that’s what you have to deal with in a title race. It’s what you have to deal with if you want to win the title. We’ve shown the opposition there’s a chink in our armour, and given them a boost in the process. As I said at the beginning, we need to ensure that this blip is just that. It cannot become a moment where control becomes chaos as in yesterday’s performance.

A wake up call? A short, sharp reminder that if you let your standards drop you’ll get punished in this league? The kick up the arse we need to get going again? Choose your poison, but right now it feels like Arsenal are at a point where anything other than an immediate response will undermine another season that promised so much. Yesterday was bad, no question, but it doesn’t have to be fatal. It cannot be. If that United goal yesterday saw us crumble, this result can’t have the impact on our season as a whole.

We hear all the time about how motivated these players are, how much they want to win everything. Well, now is the time to stand up and be counted. For them, and for the manager. It’s a bit mad to say it feels like we’re on the ropes with a 4 point lead at the top of the table, but a week ago that could have been 9 points. Change course, right the ship, and get going again. There’s nothing else to it.

Ok, I’ll leave it there this morning. Stand by for an Arsecast Extra, as always. We’ve already put out the call for questions on BlueSky @gunnerblog.bsky.social and @arseblog.com. So fire away using the hashtag #arsecastextra – or if you’re an Arseblog Member on Patreon, leave your question in the #arsecast-extra-questions channel on our Discord server. The pod should be out around noon today.

For now, have a good one.