The likes of Dennis Bergkamp, Robert Pires and Thierry Henry would have been squirming like crazy had they watched Arshavin refuse to seek a better placed Arsenal player. Those players perfected the art of making the correct decision in front of goal

Match Review – Arsenal 1 Manchester United 3 – Premier League

We were expecting a few team line up surprises before the kick off on Sunday afternoon but I expected those surprises only to come from Arsene Wenger. After all the Campbell vs Rooney talk before the kick off, it was Thomas Vermaelen who started in the heart of defence alongside Gallas.

With Ferdinand suspended following his forearm smash against Hull City, Ferguson would have been praying that Vidic could come through to start but he broke down in training which meant a second string central defensive pairing for Manchester United. It mattered very little in the end.

With a full side available apart from Van Persie and Diaby I was feeling rather confident facing a team missing their first choice center backs.

Arsenal started the brighter and should have scored early when Arshavin was released down the left, with Nasri and Rosicky poised in central positions the Russian ignored them both and attempted a curler then didn’t curl enough to trouble Van der Sar.

Manchester United swung back into action and turned up the heat on Arsenal’s back four, Rooney was denied fantastically well by William Gallas only a few yards out from goal.

Nani was a constant thorn in Arsenal’s side and gave Clichy plenty of problems. He is much faster than I imagined him to be.

Arshavin had a moment of deja vu when he cut in from the left repeated his trick of curling wide when others were in good positions.

The game was end to end, both teams pushing forward in search of the breakthrough. Both sides looking impressive without really testing the keeper until just after the half hour mark.

Manchester United’s first goal was created by a sublime piece of trickery by Nani. I thought we had seen the back of Portuguese wingers terrorising our defence. This time it was Nani who flicked in between Clichy and Nasri, Denilson must have had the Bolton match at the Emirates in mind when Nani raced towards him, he swerved outside Denilson after a subtle shimmy and stood his cross up to the back post for Park. instead Almunia finger tipped the ball into his net.

Tomas Rosicky was ball watching just inside the penalty area at the far post. If he had raced back to pick up Park who was waiting for Nani’s cross then he could have been in the right place to clear the danger away

Tomas isn’t the only player guilty of this, it often seems like the team react to dangerous situations as apposed to anticipating where possible dangers will be.

An Arsenal corner started the move for Manchester United’s second goal only minutes later. The counter attack used to be our strength. Teams used to be afraid of over committing players against us on corners because of our ability to get from one end to another. Unfortunately this side have been caught out with the same problem.

Denilson seems to be getting a large portion of blame for Rooney’s goal and after watching it about seven times I believe that Denilson could not have known where Rooney was until it was too late. Rooney had played the reverse pass to the impressive Nani who was eating away at the ground in front of him, Rooney was a long way behind the play and wasn’t in the view of most of the Arsenal players. Alex Song, Thomas Vermaelen and William Gallas had all stayed up for the corner and only Vermaelen had burst a gut to get back. Vermaelen had come across to right back to pick up Park who was in acres of space and Nasri would have been the only one that could have seen Rooney run past him in order to support Nani, instead of going with Rooney he slowed down which allowed Rooney to pick his spot on the blind side of Denilson.

Denilson could have had a glance around him when Nani had slowed down and Sagna had come across to face him which brings me back to not being defensively proactive as a unit. We should not be so exposed from our own corner kick. Great work from Rooney and Nani but it was extremely naive from Arsenal just as they were against Everton for Steven Pienaar’s goal.

On January 26th I wrote:

That is pretty much exactly what happened yesterday. Manchester United were not technically a class above us, they were not stronger in the tackle, they did not dominate us in anyway apart from being more clever, more street smart.

Manchester United know that they have enough quality to do damage if given the space to do so, soaking up Arsenal pressure, allowing us to come onto them and then hit us on the break will allow them the space to score goals and that is what happened.

Last season after our drubbing at the hands of Manchester City at Eastlands, Wenger reined in the side and got them back to basics, our full backs were more conservative and the side kept their shape much better. We got back on track and remained unbeaten for a long time. Now that the flair players are back from injury, we have gone back to our expansive football.

It is fully understandable against most teams that come to the Emirates to flood the midfield and set up their wall in front of their goalkeeper, we can afford to take risks against the likes of Blackburn Rovers or Bolton but against the likes of Chelsea, Manchester United and any decent opposition, it is a risk we do not need to take. With players like Cesc, Nasri, Arshavin and Rosicky in the side we know that they can create their own chances. Setting up a platform may encourage the opposition to try and break us down thus given our attackers the space needed to score a goal like Manchester United’s second.

Moments after the second goal, Alex Song bulldozed his way through and hit a left foot shot wide, Manchester United had nine players in and around the ball, snapping away at Arsenal feet, not allowing time or space. That in my eyes was the difference between the two sides.

The poor defending from Arsenal was topped only seven minutes into the second half. Denilson miss controlled a ball in the Manchester United half, a quick exchange between Rooney and Carrick saw Park put through from inside his own half. It was so deep that he couldn’t have even been offside. One ball like that should not be beating a whole team. Clichy being the last man got caught in two minds, hold his position to stop a potential cross or close down Park. He made Park’s mind up for him by holding his position which allowed Ji-Sung Park the freedom of the Arsenal half to job through and slot into Almunia’s near side.

No shape, no organisation, only one end result. An opposition goal.

Cesc Fabregas was not at his best, he gave away too many balls yet he was at the heart of many of our better moves during the ninety minutes. Cesc cannot drag the team through every game, other players will have to step forward and help our captain.

I was very disappointed with Andrey Arshavin, for once it was not for being on the fringes of the game, he was very heavily involved and caused Manchester United problems with his direct running. The problem was, he was not playing for Arsenal yesterday. He wasn’t playing for his team mates, he was playing for himself and that is not what Arsene expects from his players.

Arshavin showed signs of it against Bolton at home, 4-2 ahead, Walcott was screaming for it in a goal scoring position, instead of creating an almost certain goal he turned his man and went alone. 4-2 ahead, you cannot blame him, especially after he created the chance on his own but at 0-0 with Cesc in the goal scoring form of his life you would have expected the cut back.

That was not the only time that Arshavin chose to go for glory rather than find a team mate, often from the left channel. Had Arsenal have got the first goal then the game could well have been different.

The likes of Dennis Bergkamp, Robert Pires and Thierry Henry would have been squirming like crazy had they watched Arshavin refuse to seek a better placed Arsenal player. Those players perfected the art of making the correct decision in front of goal and it served us very well.

Another increasingly frustrating trend is our crossing into the box when we have Arshavin standing alongside much larger defenders. Arshavin, Nasri and Rosicky are not going to score from crosses, so watching Clichy and Sagna just toss balls into the box drove me to despair. I would much rather we over played it and lost the ball trying to play one-two’s around the box in an attempt to work a shooting opportunity than pretty much just giving the ball back to the opposition. When the likes of Bendtner, Diaby and our central defenders are present in the opposition half then I would feel more at ease but apart from that it is pointless.

Vermaelen pulled a goal back with a deflected shot. Had it have been ten minutes earlier then we could have had more of a game on our hands, instead it was just a mere consolation to a rather miserable Sunday.

We could have been in for the grandstand finish if Gallas did not head wide from 6 yards. It would have been more difficult to miss the target and he achieved that. Rooney had time to rub further salt into the wounds but missed the target from close range.

Manchester United closed out the game and come away with all the points.

It is not often that our manager comes out and is so critical of his players in public. He said that his side were poor in every aspect, really really poor and he is not wrong. The team are so much better than this and they will not have enough time to feel sorry for themselves. Our performance on such an important stage fell below the required standard at Arsenal and it is down to the players to pull it around and beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. A result that the team is well capable of but on yesterdays showing, are a long way from doing so if we continue to make the same mistakes.

It is time to take another deep breath in and support the players when they come out for the next game. Losing to Manchester United is not good for the morale but it certainly does not rule anyone out of the title race. Manchester United won the league by beating the so called lesser sides so we have to continue to do that and hope that the players can take a big step forward in our next league game.

Just as we found after the Chelsea game, we are being told that our players are not good enough and we need player x, y, z. Well personally I do not buy that. Technically we have as good if not better players than most. The issue is we are poor tactically and get punished. If Manchester United had our approach yesterday and we have theirs then I the result would have gone the other way. That I have no doubt.

Wenger will no doubt take a look at what went wrong on the day and the team will show what they are made of next week.

Still a long way to go, come on you Gunners.

Click to read Iron Man’s view of the match