THE FIRE AND THE FURY
Great rivals turn back clock and slug it out to the finish
It was just like old times, apart from the quality. there were occasional glimpses of brilliance, the ferocity remained, the niggle, the thrills and — somehow — the grudges.
Many of these players were little more than kids, and a continent away, when arsenal and Manchester United were duking it out in the days of sir alex Ferguson and arsene wenger. they don’t know what Pizzagate means, they never heard the famous tunnel exchange between Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira, or saw Martin Keown loom over Ruud van Nistelrooy like Dracula without his cape.
Yet they got the hang of it soon enough. this was the first United arsenal game since august 1986 not to involve Ferguson or wenger, but between minutes 37 and 42 there were five bookings in as many minutes, one arsenal player went off on a stretcher and another failed to reappear after half-time.
Bodies were strewn around the pitch like a scene from Rollerball, yet it was all just about the right side of wrong. and, my word, it was exciting.
arsenal took the lead twice and kept it for a combined total of five minutes. the second time, it lasted all of 13 seconds.
Unai Emery was so agitated, it seemed he might screw himself into the pitch, so frantic was his writhing. Jose Mourinho just looked irritated. By everything. By everybody. He left out just about every stellar name from United’s starting line-up — Paul Pogba, Romelu Lukaku, Juan Mata, Marouane Fellaini — but the performance level did not suffer, which says a lot.
arsenal probably shaded it over the 90 minutes, but not in any way that makes the result less than fair. tyson Fury was a spectator, still claiming he was robbed by the judges in Los angeles. Neither team were robbed here.
United’s first goal came from a free-kick given for what looked like a dive. It’s annoying, but not exactly a job for the fraud squad.
United’s resolve has been doubted, so it says much for them that they equalised, twice, from their first counter-punch, and in the second half almost straight from kick-off.
that was the most ridiculous passage of play: an arsenal goal run into the net by a United defender, a United equaliser as good as teed up by an arsenal man. total football, it wasn’t. total chaos, maybe.
It was 1-1 when, in the 68th minute, Marcos Rojo tried some clever footwork in his own half. Clever footwork is not Rojo’s forte and calamity ensued. He gave the ball straight to Henrik Mkhitaryan as arsenal broke. Mkhitaryan combined with another of Emery’s substitutes, alexandre Lacazette, and as he pulled the trigger to shoot, in charged Rojo, desperate to make amends.
Eric Bailly sent Lacazette tumbling and Rojo got a foot to the ball, succeeding only in helping it past David de Gea.
arsenal have made a habit of winning games in the second half, but not here. From the kick-off the ball went backwards before being launched up to Romelu Lukaku.
He turned shkodran Mustafi, who looked to be struggling with injury, before sead Kolasinac came in to mop up. the mop-up became a mess-up, however, as he ran the ball straight into the path of Jesse Lingard, poaching as usual, and pushing the ball past Bernd Leno. Emery’s anguish was obvious, so too the mockery of the home fans.
Yet arsenal finished the better, Pierre- Emerick aubameyang forcing two fine saves from De Gea in the 70th and 75th minutes, the second at full stretch, redeeming his rare mistake for the visitors’ opener. You read right: a De Gea error gave arsenal the lead. stop the press. Hold the back page.
Lucas Torreira curled in a lovely corner from the left, aimed for Mustafi, who lost his footing on the greasy surface but recovered to meet the ball just the same.
If anything, his slip propelled him towards it with even greater purpose, but his aim was off and the header was buried into the turf in front of him. It reared up and the whole cavalcade appeared to take De Gea by surprise.
He pawed at the ball but not with his usual strength and it floated over the line. ander Herrera tried to clear but the technology did not lie. Marriner signalled the goal. these days, there can be no complaints.
VAR might have had something to say about United’s equaliser, mind. Not just Herrera’s position for the assist, but the initial foul. anthony Martial looked to have dived to buy it against Matteo Guendouzi, but Marriner was a willing dupe and gave a free-kick
just outside the area. Rojo took it and Leno parried to his left, but weakly. Herrera was first to it — probably because he was offside — and clipped it back for Martial to finish. He has been in his best United form of late, but it was an unsatisfactory conclusion, given the move most probably started with his deception.
And so, niggle resulted. Marcus Rashford went in hard, but just about fair, on Rob Holding, who played no further part in the game — then the yellow cards brought back memories of the days when this was the best, but often also the ugliest, match of the season.
Mustafi took out Rashford just the right side of the penalty area boundary to avoid calamity and, when the free-kick was blocked, Rojo dived in two-footed trying to stop Guendouzi clearing. Of all the yellows, his was the one that could easily have turned red.
Lingard was booked for a foul on Torreira, then Hector Bellerin for one on Matteo Darmian.
Maintaining a rate that felt like the disciplinary equivalent of speed-dating, Nemanja Matic was then cautioned for pulling back Aubameyang.
This episode had a further casualty when Aaron Ramsey did not appear after half-time, having received treatment following a tussle with Matic — one that caused a nasty Torreira foul to go unnoticed. He should have been the sixth player booked for treading on Herrera’s ankle. It conformed to the stereotype: a feisty Uruguayan the best at the rough stuff, and smart enough to go undetected.
So, it was a fair result — if not always a fair game — but hardly of much use to either team. Arsenal stay out of the Champions League spots on goal difference, United out of the European places the same way. In that respect, at least, it is not like old times at all.