Man United have climbed to third in the table after beating Arsenal 2-1, thanks to Abou Diaby’s own goal. Arsenal had gone ahead thanks to Andrey Arshavin but after being awarded a penalty, Man United had equalised.
Sir Alex Ferguson had shown Arsenal a lot of respect by copying their formation (at home) which left Wayne Rooney upfront on his own. Dimitar Berbatov and Michael Owen were left on the bench, which meant that it was upto, Antonio Valencia, Luis Nani and Ryan Giggs to help Rooney upfront. This formation didn’t work for most of the match; we never really looked like scoring from open play.
Saying that, we could have got an early goal. Only four minutes in and Rooney set up Darren Fletcher but he missed the target from 10 yards out.
If anyone was going to score from the first half, it looked like it was going to be Arsenal. Robin Van Persie had a chance in the penalty area but Patrice Evra blocked the ball. Just before Arsenal scored, they had a claim for a penalty when Fletcher appeared to have handled the ball inside the penalty area.
With five minutes of the first half left, Arshavin decided to take a chance and he shot from 25-yards out. The superb strike went past Ben Foster who did get a slight hand on the ball, he could have done better but Arsenal went into half time with a 1-0 lead.
Man United had been terrible throughout the first half, something needed to be changed but surprisingly nothing was changed for the first half.
Foster may have been partly to blame for the Arsenal goal but he saved us only minutes into the second half. Foster managed to block Van Persie’s shot with his legs to keep us in the game. If we had gone 2-0 down, I think that would have been game over.
59 minutes in and Man United were handed a lifeline. Arsenal goalkeeper Manuel Almunia run off his line and he took Rooney out in the penalty area, the referee awarded Man United a penalty. Rooney got up, he took the penalty, Rooney hit the ball to his right and Almunia dived the other way.
We only had to wait another five minutes to see another goal. Man United were awarded a free kick. Giggs took it, the ball wasn’t going anywhere but Diaby decided to head it, instead of heading it away, he headed it straight past his keeper and into the back of the net. Man United were 2-1 up.
78 minutes into the match Arsene Wenger introduced Eduardo and he came on to the sound of ‘cheat’ and boos.
It was now up to Arsenal to come out and attack United, they were the ones who needed a goal. Their hopes were slashed slightly when Arshavin limped off with what looked like a hamstring injury.
As Arsenal pushed forward for a goal, that left spaces for United and substitute Dimitar Berbatov hit a glorious chance wide. Luis Nani saw his strike saved by Almunia.
Five minutes of stoppage time was added on at the end, not quite sure where they got that from. Minutes into stoppage time, Van Persie thought he had equalised for Arsenal but it was correctly ruled offside. In frustration, Arsene Wenger kicked a water bottle and he was sent to the stands. He refused to do that, so he was assorted down the tunnel, as he was doing that, the full time whistle went.
Arsenal was the better team but we got all three points and at the end of the day, that is all that matters.
