I do have an issue with our team though. I have had this issue for a while now. When you look at this team, it is built to play in front of opponents. We are designed to play football outside of the penalty box. Even more so when you remove Theo Walcott from the team. Giroud is a striker who faces his midfielders, he is one of the best at bringing midfielders into play but when given the ball to feet with no support, he is virtually neutralised. He doesn’t have a burst to escape a defender and his top speed is slow. Unless he plays it off in two touches, he tends to take too many and get dispossessed. Giroud has had a fantastic season so far, he is one of the best at what he does, he just cannot do everything

Another defeat at Old Trafford for Arsenal. I felt it was coming. The Champions were written off far too quickly in my opinion, they were always going to put in a great deal of work to stop us from playing. In truth I thought they would be far more aggressive and we’d see our players getting kicked but that wasn’t the case.

It was a game too far for Arsenal. In a week where we have faced three quality opponents, facing the last one away from home was going to be tough. Even more so when you consider our lack of rotational options due to injury and sickness.

The game was all about who scored first. If Oliver Giroud had scored from a set piece before Manchester United then we would have sat back and dug our heals in just as we had done in Dortmund. That Dortmund game is viewed as heroic but so many variables are involved by the time the full time whistle is blown.

Had Henrikh Mkhitaryan curled his shot into the corner of Szczesny’s net, Arsenal would have come out and opened up the game. It is entirely conceivable that Dortmund could have picked us off on the break winning the game 3-0 or 4-1 and the narrative would have shot to the other end of the spectrum.

At Old Trafford van Persie won his header at the near post, something he has improved upon a great deal since joining Manchester United. You can pick holes in every goal conceded but sometimes you just have to give credit to the goal scorer and the delivery as Iron Man said in his piece

Not that I wish to hand van Persie any credit.

I do have an issue with our team though. I have had this issue for a while now. When you look at this team, it is built to play in front of opponents. We are designed to play football outside of the penalty box. Even more so when you remove Theo Walcott from the team. Giroud is a striker who faces his midfielders, he is one of the best at bringing midfielders into play but when given the ball to feet with no support, he is virtually neutralised. He doesn’t have a burst to escape a defender and his top speed is slow. Unless he plays it off in two touches, he tends to take too many and get dispossessed. Giroud has had a fantastic season so far, he is one of the best at what he does, he just cannot do it himself.

With a midfield of Cazorla, Özil, Ramsey, Rosicky, and Arteta we have a cast of intricate passers who along with Giroud almost play within a box. To score that box needs to all move inside the penalty area and they can pass through you on a good day but we have nobody willing to do two important things. One which is to pick up the ball and run directly at defenders and skip past them.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is one of the few players we have in our squad who is willing to do this. The other missing ingredient is a player who doesn’t want the ball to feet outside of the box but will run into space at the right time to meet a pass. If Chamberlain is our missing dribbler then Theo is quite clearly our missing runner. Chamberlain and Walcott are the points that turn the box into triangles. Our football doesn’t have to be perfect with those players in the team.

It is why Theo ended up as our top scorer last season, not because of his stint as centre forward, not because he has the best finish at the club or shot but because he wanted to get into those positions to score. Even when Theo is playing, I don’t think we have enough players who do this for our incredibly creative midfield.

While I expect the recent Twitter rumour of Arsenal being interested in Barcelona’s Pedro to be the usual made up nonsense, he is a player I love and would score bucket loads of goals from wide with his diagonal movement off the ball. You can be tired and pass through Norwich City when not at your best but when it comes to tough games away from home we need to ask more attacking questions in future.

Losing to Manchester United is always a bitter pill to swallow but there is no reason to feel too down about it. We’ve matched the biggest sides we have played this season. Beaten two of the three and lost away at last season’s champions by a goal. Things are still looking up and for any Gunners fans who can’t always make the game, keeping an eye on the score at Footballscores.com has been a pleasure, rather than a chore.

What is important now is that we avoid international break injuries and get our outlets back in the side again. Theo Walcott should be back followed shortly afterwards by Lukas Podolski. There was a reason why they scored so many league goals last season. We will need more goals once more from them.