What I found baffling was the amount of times Adebayor was pulling out wide and dropping into deep positions because it meant that we had no focal point up front

Manchester United had scored 4 goals in each of their last 4 games previous to the top of the table clash with Arsenal. Alex Ferguson switched his United side about to stop Arsenal from playing football. Manchester United were compact, organised and disciplined.

Arsene Wenger didn’t want to go gung ho against a Manchester United team who have alot of counter attacking players and continued with the 4-5-1 that played so well at Liverpool.

It was a case of two exciting and attacking teams playing cautiously.

Arsenal were the more attacking team who had more of the ball, more shots and wanted to force the game Manchester United played like an Italian team.

Brazilian Anderson looked more like Claude Makalele than Ronaldiniho. He was quite impressive in the central midfield position.

Cesc Fabregas was influential despite not having not much space and time. His performance was alot better than it was at Anfield last week. He has such a wonderful ability to see everything around him without lifting his head up.

Hleb started the match very well and drove at Manchester United whenever he had the ball but United started to cut down his threat as the first half went on.

I expected Manchester United to attempt to take the game to us more than they did but they only attacked us once they were counter attacking us. Ronaldo was once again kept fairly quiet by Gael Clichy.

The one player in the Arsenal side who let himself down was Emmanuel Adebayor who just could not get at Ferdinand and Vidic. He chased and harried but did not cause enough damage in possession. What I found baffling was the amount of times Adebayor was pulling out wide and dropping into deep positions because it meant that we had no focal point up front.

Many times Rosicky and Eboue would have the ball in wide areas and their was no options in the box, so the ball just ended up being played back outside the penalty area where Anderson and Hargreaves stood.

Arsene made some unusual substitutions, changes that he doesn’t usually make. He took off Hleb would was productive and was the only player running at Manchester United and brought on Gilberto which allowed Cesc to play further forward. He brought on Eduardo who scored a brace in midweek in a strikers position and played him on the left wing.

Eduardo should have been upfront alongside Adebayor and Hleb should have been able to cut in from the left wing.

So 2 points from the two big matches does not really tell us much. It does tell us that Arsenal are a better team than Liverpool and it does tell us that Manchester United are going to be a force this season. It has also confirmed to us that Arsenal will battle to the very end of every match.