Declan Rice rescued Arsenal twice and then absolutely nailed them after their draw with Manchester United. But Gary Neville is not bothered about all that.
1) For a game of relative inconsequence, the ramifications both sides must face in the aftermath of a belatedly entertaining scrap at Old Trafford are abundant.
Arsenal are in neither a title race nor really a sprint finish over the Champions League qualification line, regardless of the media desperation to manufacture drama in both scenarios. Before this game it was excitedly pointed out in the Sky Sports studio that they play three times before Liverpool have another game and the gap could thus theoretically be slashed to a hilariously anti-climactic seven points having played an extra match.
Yet after this draw, the pundit-led narrative entirely seamfully switched to Arsenal needing to focus on the anachronistic aim of finishing in “the top four”, despite fifth place almost definitely being enough to secure a Champions League place and the Gunners enjoying a whole nine-point cushion to sixth.
It might not suit broadcasters desperate to inject an element of jeopardy wherever possible but Arsenal’s domestic campaign is over in any meaningful sense; the month leading into the Champions League quarter-final will be spent carefully placing each and every available egg in that basket.
But this was still every bit as damning as all other slips and stumbles in a recent run of substandard results and performances which have laid bare the gulf that exists between Arsenal and Liverpool. This side should have been brimming with confidence after a sensational victory in midweek yet their best player against a team in ostensible relegation form was their keeper.
And even then, David Raya was mainly at fault for the goal which sent Arsenal on course to a thoroughly embarrassing defeat they eventually but only barely avoided.
If the first half exposed the worst aspects of Arteta’s obsession with control, the second provided a series of examples of why he clings to it so intensely.
2) There was a brief moment in the season when it seemed tantalisingly possible but Manchester United will not be relegated. In that sense, the total shift in focus to Europe is perhaps the only parallel that can be drawn between them and Arsenal in their current guises.
Ruben Amorim implored his players to “use the energy” from the thousands-strong pre-match fan protest and “finish the game with nothing left to give”. He cannot fault them on this occasion for they really should have won and their late push for a winner after the setback of the equaliser was particularly commendable.
The coach should be applauded for finally blending his unbending ideals with a low defensive block which might not accentuate the strengths of this team but equally doesn’t reveal their weaknesses nearly as glaringly as prior systems. And right now that is the sort of small victory Amorim and his players should cherish and build upon.
The Portuguese has cracked the code in these games, drawing twice against Arsenal and once with Liverpool while beating Manchester City since defeat at the Emirates in December. These results and performances are welcome but they tell us nothing until Manchester United show they can consistently do it against literally any other kind of team on a less grand stage.
3) Declan Rice carried his excellence across 90 minutes into an astute summation of the game, saying Arsenal “did things we haven’t done all season” in the second half, admonishing their “stupidity” and adding: “It was very naive in the last ten minutes.”
It was an assessment he could make without shame as the scorer of the equaliser and the first emergency responder on the scene when Mikel Merino decided to set ablaze any remaining chances of him immediately being reconverted into a central midfielder of repute when this injury crisis subsides.
Rice reacted instantly and timed his tackle in the area on Rasmus Hojlund to perfection when Merino suffered the ignominy of being dispossessed by Casemiro on the edge of his own box as Arsenal passed the ball around the back with the scores level.
It was entirely uncharacteristic from the hosts, a snapshot of their immature worst from four or five years ago placed delicately towards the end of this game by AI. That was the only explanation because it is difficult to remember the last time Arsenal were caught so dreadfully by a basic pressing trap they have become masters at laying.
The individual errors started to stack up and there was no inevitability about them scoring a winner once Rice restored parity. Arsenal equalisers tend to be followed by irresistible waves of attacks; if anything this one inhibited them and galvanised Manchester United.
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4) There is something admittedly small to celebrate in that for Amorim, considering this team’s tendency to collapse in on itself at the slightest sign of pressure and opposition momentum.
“We have to maintain the calm when we suffer a goal – it was similar in the last match. The players need to understand the game has different moments,” said Amorim after the defeat to Bournemouth in December in which Justin Kluivert’s penalty to make it 2-0 was followed by an Antoine Semenyo game-ender two minutes later. The theme of Manchester United conceding goals in quick succession is well-established and even overlaps different managerial reigns.
But the response to Rice’s goal was unexpectedly spirited and that final quarter of an hour from the hosts was the best sustained period either side enjoyed all game. That is undoubted progress; the challenge is to carry it forward.
5) It really was quite grim for 45 minutes. Arsenal passed it around but rarely into the opposition area, while Manchester United could get nothing to stick due to a combination of a resolute defence and Andre Onana’s risible kicking.
With more than two thirds of possession, Arsenal fashioned five shots from outside the area which could be categorised as either blocked, comfortably saved or wide, while Leandro Trossard trying to control a Martin Odegaard dink over his shoulder and instead touching it back to Onana qualified as an effort on target.
The lack of creation, inventiveness, guile and even individuality was painfully stark and brought to mind that old Arteta quote about pursuing “dominance and not allowing teams to breathe”.
Arsenal often seem to have achieved that ideal – Arteta made note of how they were able to “dominate every aspect of the game” through almost the entire first half with no reward – but they have rarely felt further from winning the title since emerging as contenders three seasons ago.
6) Then came the goal, the build-up to which Arteta boiled down to “one long ball” creating space for Alejandro Garnacho to run into. Trossard brought him down on the edge of the area and Bruno Fernandes converted the free-kick wonderfully.
It spawned very possibly the single most tiresome and laboured discussion point in human history, shaped by Gary Neville doing some noticing. He discerned that the Arsenal wall was ever so slightly further away than it had to be, and Sky Sports decided to dedicate their subsequent existence to poring over that really quite minor detail.
The literal entire half-time analysis was devoted to adult humans looking at replays of this Arsenal wall from different angles, to briefly consider the starting position of Raya but mainly to generate some bizarre controversy which was only slightly undercut by Paul Merson at one stage pontificating whether Fernandes “hit it with his foot and that’s what’s made it dip”, and the record being broken for the amount of times the phrase “get it up and down” has been uttered in a couple of minutes.
Eventually the platform ate itself by responding to Neville’s commentary request of “look, can we get a measure on that?” by returning from the break to declare that they had indeed genuinely measured the wall to be exactly 11.2 yards back – “absolutely miles away” according to Neville – as if every prior wall in the history of association football was precisely ten yards and Arsenal had been fundamentally cheated out of closing the gap to Liverpool to 13 points with ten games to play.
Not content with that, every available manager and player was asked about it after the game and their overwhelming lack of being arsed was heartening. Fair play in particular to Rice and Arteta for refusing to entertain the idea that The Conspiracy extends to Arsenal being systematically placed 1.2 yards further back than necessary at free-kicks fairly far out that a keeper positioned correctly would have saved.
7) That somehow wasn’t the last we heard of it during the game. The still of Fernandes standing over the free-kick in front of the assembled Arsenal wall – whoever managed to capture them in the same frame is a miracle worker – was shown early in the second half to a soundtrack of building fan excitement as they eventually cut back to the end of a thrilling Manchester United attack.
Thank the lord we were able to see that definitely really important thing yet again; what a shame the ongoing football game had to interrupt Neville’s best rendition of Dale Winton on primetime BBC in 2008.
8) It really was a fine Manchester United forward foray, too. Amorim’s philosophy was realised as Diogo Dalot crossed from one side to the unmarked Noussair Mazraoui in the centre, only for Raya to produce a stunning stop.
The wing-backs combining after Joshua Zirkzee dropped deep with some impeccable hold-up play in the build-up was one of those moments you can sense a manager’s principles starting to stick. For a Manchester United side lacking any semblance of patterns of play or evidence of work done on the training ground being applied to games for some time, it was quite surprising. It’s good to finally have confirmation that Amorim actually has been working with them.
9) Fernandes was inevitably involved in the early makings of that chance; no opportunity Manchester United have carved out in the last half-decade has been without at least a trace of his fingertips.
This was the sort of performance his detractors say he cannot deliver, then when he does they insist he does not do it consistently enough. But it is difficult to put into words precisely how knacked Manchester United would be without him.
That is not to say Fernandes is without his faults. He can be a detriment to the team and often sets a tone of petulance which seeps through the rest of the players. This is the season of three red cards after all.
But in that moment when Anthony Taylor interrupted a possible Manchester United attack to bring the half to a close, and both Zirkzee and Garnacho rushed towards the referee in presumed hope their protest would prompt him to immediately restart the game with everyone in the same position to see how things played out, Fernandes displayed an understated leadership which will go unnoticed. He beckoned them both away and towards the tunnel for a debrief on an unexpected lead when in a different time the Portuguese might have led the futile objections.
10) Can Arsenal be fined for letting Casemiro make nine tackles in a single game? If so, double it because Victor Lindelof made ten clearances on his first Premier League start in almost a year.
11) One of those Casemiro tackles sparked perhaps the best move of the match, as Garnacho and Fernandes combined to force Jurrien Timber into clearing a cutback intended for Christian Eriksen lurking near the penalty spot.
Soon after, Mazraoui held off Partey to play in Garnacho before Zirkzee forced a fine save from Raya with a delightful flick. Then came Hojlund’s deer-in-the-Rice-shaped-headlights moment, immediately after which the Dane was foiled when trying to meet a good Toby Collyer cross.
Fernandes could have won it in stoppage time after latching onto two excellent low crosses from Garnacho and then Mazraoui but Raya was alert enough to keep him out again.
Forgive what is essentially just a list of chances being described; it was just strange to see Manchester United look so coherent and, whisper it quietly, good in attack, especially with how static and poor they were in the first half. In the second they resembled teammates who play football together frequently every week and that is intended as a compliment.
12) The commentary for that late Fernandes chance should be used for torture. Peter Drury shouting the name of a player and Neville making a silly noise made all that nonsense about the wall seem vaguely palatable. Which is good because by that point we were just a matter of minutes from being able to talk about all that again.
13) Rice took the equaliser exquisitely but Timber shedding the Arsenal automations helped create it. The Dutchman completed more dribbles than any player – more than all Manchester United players combined, in fact – and one of them unsettled the defence just enough to create the space for Rice to shoot.
Even that only yielded a chance the shooter needed perfect accuracy to convert from about 16 yards out. Without wanting to go full 11.2-yard measuring fanatic, that was about as close as any actual opportunity Arsenal created, while Manchester United made one in the six-yard box then a few far more central around the penalty spot.
If Arsenal need a striker, they also must significantly change how they create presentable chances in central positions for them.
14) To that end, it might be time to abandon the Merino experiment.
It was glorious fun while it lasted and we were all reeled in by that two-goal salvo against Leicester but in three Premier League games since he has done basically nothing. And it might even take time to reprogramme him, going off that late mistake.
But then what else do Arsenal really have? Kieran Tierney was their last of three substitutes in a shot at Raheem Sterling, but even more damning was that the Scot was probably their best player in attack during that 15-minute cameo.
He was involved in the two moves Arsenal pushed through in stoppage time when Trossard had a shot blocked and then Odegaard scuffed his effort, obviously slightly to the right and on the edge of the area.
Rice would probably be the next player to try up front if he wasn’t so ubiquitous in and desperately needed by that midfield.
15) It’s been mentioned before but Arsenal so frequently play long portions of games as if they are in the final five minutes and chasing a result. There is a certain panic to their play, a rushed nature to their decision-making which is inevitably counter-productive.
Within a minute of the start of the second half, Trossard had a shot easily blocked from 30 yards. Arsenal’s first two corners after the break were played back for Odegaard to shoot from range, then clipped straight to the edge of the area for Rice to volley over.
There might be an element of contradiction in chastising them for showing no invention or originality before singling out those moments as part of the problem, but they felt like strange things to try when in reality the game plan before conceding a set-piece was basically fine. If Arsenal had any convictions in their beliefs they would surely have carried on playing the same way, such was their “dominance” in the first half.
16) In such a deeply existential game, it cannot do either fanbase any good that ultimately this result was the best-case scenario for neither Arsenal nor Manchester United but Liverpool, who get to enjoy an extension of their lead at the Premier League summit without the caveat of either rival getting to celebrate on a weekend when Manchester City also lost.
Perhaps it’s actually unfair to say there is nothing else riding on this domestic season for Arsenal. The pressure is on to draw this out for long enough to avoid the embarrassment of having to give Liverpool a guard of honour at Anfield on May 10, which coincidentally would come straight after a theoretical Champions League semi-final second leg between the two teams.
If Arteta doesn’t lose his hair through the stress of that hypothetical week then he should be punished by the FA.
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