RAMPANT GUNNERS TEAR UNITED APART
What a statement this was f rom arsenal. What a comeback. What a riposte.
arsene Wenger does not need to get tetchy with his critics. he just needs to inspire more performances like this. arsenal have it in them, as was proved yesterday. they have a title in them, too, as antagonists such as Jose Mourinho have long suggested.
these are fine players, largely. Yes, there are stronger contenders defensively, but few that can elevate the beauty in the game to the heights arsenal reached in their early exchanges with United.
a goal up after six minutes, two clear a minute later and by the time alexis Sanchez hit the third with three quarters of the game left, the locals were in rapture.
how could this be the same team that lost to Olympiakos at home five days previously? Up to second place, how could this be the club supposedly teetering on the brink of crisis?
arsenal were outstanding, laying down a marker to rival Manchester City’s win over Chelsea by the same margin i n august. Yet Chelsea, as has subsequently been revealed, are a team that have lost their way. a few have taken lumps out of them this season.
United, by contrast, were league leaders going into this weekend, Louis van Gaal credited with adding defensive steel, even if it has been at the expense of excitement.
arsenal dismantled that theory inside 20 minutes. this serves as a blueprint, too. the cavalier football van Gaal has sacrificed makes United less able to chase a game down like they did in the old days. they had 84 minutes to get back at arsenal here and failed to score. It is hard to imagine that would have happened under Sir alex Ferguson.
arsenal stunned United with pace and energy, Mesut Ozil the craftsman, Sanchez and theo Walcott a front line as formidable as any seen in this campaign.
they could have been five clear by the break. United clearly had counter-attack plans of their own but never got to execute them.
there were 45 minutes gone when United finally got a chance at goal, anthony Martial shrugging off Per Mertesacker far too easily before t urning t o shoot and being thwarted by Petr Cech.
Cech was flawless after half-time, too, keeping out ashley Young, then Wayne Rooney, and bravely diving at the f eet of Bastian Schweinsteiger.
all of arsenal’s goals were quality, starting with a beautifully weighted ball inside the line from aaron Ramsey to Ozil, cutting out Daley Blind entirely.
Ozil can be the most infuriating player in the league, anonymous in some games, a virtuoso the next. this was the football equivalent of a finely-tuned Stradivarius.
Reaching the by-line, Ozil cut the ball back for Sanchez at the near post, the Chilean converting with a wonderful backheel flick. they could have performed that goal at the Royal albert hall.
the next began with a Sanchez backheel. this time he sent Walcott away down the left. he saw Ozil in support and played him in, the German sidefooting the ball into the left corner of David de Gea’s goal. Seven minutes gone and, already, t he game was slipping from United’s grasp.
Just 12 minutes later, Sanchez took it away completely. he collected a pass from Walcott on the left edge of the area and cut inside. Matteo Darmian’s challenge was weak, Juan Mata too concerned with giving away a penalty and Chris Smalling simply outwitted, before Sanchez struck a superb shot for one of the best goals that will be seen here all season.
With a little more accuracy, arsenal’s goal- of- t he - season contest could have been held last night. In the 26th minute, Santi Cazorla teed the ball up by dinking a header over his marker, met it on the other side but shot wide — and 10 minutes before half-time a lovely chip from Sanchez put Ramsey in but he volleyed over.
the second half saw arsenal settling and United probing but the numbers — shots at goal, possession — gave a false sense of how close this match was. the best chance still fell to arsenal when alex Oxlade-Chamberlain hit the bar near the end.
If arsenal could bottle this elixir, Wenger would never have to answer impertinent questions again.