A GIANT LEAP FORWARD
Roaring Rooney and Van Persie fire United back into title race
FROM all the talk of false nines and sixman midfield formations, here was some much-needed respite. A big match decided by that most unfashionable of modern breeds: strikers.
Robin van Persie won it; Wayne Rooney was immense. The pair combined for the only goal of the game. How can any manager regard such influence as a dying art?
With a better cutting edge, Arsenal would have drawn this. Instead, Van Persie and Rooney were the difference. They were a different class to Olivier Giroud and the late addition to Arsenal’s forward ranks, Nicklas Bendtner.
The Gunners increased the pressure in the second half, but the massed ranks of Manchester United behind the ball foiled them.
Arsenal were crowded out in a way they perhaps would not have been during Sir Alex Ferguson’s time. David Moyes is not too proud to have all 11 players in the defensive third. And whatever is said about United’s attacking traditions, yesterday the crowd loved it.
A rearguard action it may have been for long periods of the second half, but this was the noisiest Old Trafford has been since Moyes’ arrival. The fans knew this was a huge win. They knew that this was United back in the game.
They enter the i nternational break now in fifth place, but just three points off Liverpool in second. As important was the need to lay down a marker in the league against major opposition.
United fizzled out to a draw against Chelsea and lost heavily against Manchester City, but Arsenal are the Premier League pacesetters and United are the first team to stop them scoring in the league since April 16 against Everton. Moyes was the manager that day, too. Since an FA Cup defeat by Blackburn Rovers on February 16, he is the only manager to have kept Arsenal out, in any competition.
‘We couldn’t afford to lose today,’ Rooney admitted. ‘We had to win at any costs.’
He played like it. He ran more than 6 miles — more than any player bar Aaron Ramsey, but a phenomenal distance for a forward. The work Rooney did chasing out to the corners to close down Arsenal’s full backs, or sprinting at the central defenders to force Wojciech Szczesny to clear the ball long, set the standard for United’s commitment.
At one stage, he ran full pelt towards Bacary Sagna, who clearly had designs on making a fool out of him. Sagna shaped as if to try something clever, a dummy perhaps or a little piece of trickery, but Rooney gained ground so quickly he turned and passed tamely back to the goalkeeper. This was a ferocious display from Rooney. It seems almost inconceivable that this time last year there were growing doubts about his fitness, or that in the summer it was thought he did not want to play for Moyes.
United played for Moyes yesterday, all right. Phil Jones was outstanding in two positions, defensive midfield and then centre half when Nemanja Vidic went off injured just before half-time, and even when Arsenal were in the ascendancy after half-time, United’s graft was the most striking aspect of the game. For all their possession, Arsenal rarely got in behind United and had one shot on target, a daisycutter from Kieran Gibbs, comfortably smothered by David de Gea.
The biggest roar from the visitors was for an optical illusion: a shot into the side-netting by Mesut Ozil that looked from one angle as if it had found goal. Cue much mockery from the locals.
It was a slow start, the sole action of note in the opening 20 minutes, a speculative over-the-head clearance by Chris Smalling, chased down by Rooney before Thomas Vermaelen reacted to the unexpected danger with a firm tackle.
The decisive event came seven minutes later. On a day when questions were asked about Arsenal’s forward prowess, it must have been painful to see Van Persie at his matchdefining best. Yet there he was, the run timed to perfection, the dead-ball delivery from Rooney so precise, the header directed sweetly towards a corner.
The craft of the midfielder can be a delight. Not many of them can win a game in the style of Van Persie. It was one of those goals that raises concern about zonal-marking systems, Van Persie allowed to run unchecked before meeting Rooney’s corner at f ull momentum. Ramsey was nearby but had other duties; Giroud was simply outjumped and outwitted.
The Dutchman’s record in this fixture is incredible. He scored i n his l ast two appearances for Arsenal against United, and in all three games for United against Arsenal. This was the f i rst time, however, that he has celebrated a goal against his old club, and the occasion was better for it. Maybe the insults from the Arsenal fans got his goat; maybe he just feels a suff i cient period of mourning has been observed. Either way, s uch raw emotion was more fitting then the apologies preferred by so many former players now. At the end, Van Persie was the first United man Moyes congratulated.
He had been taken off with five minutes remaining as United sought to hold their lead but, although Arsenal’s game improved after half-time, the best chances still fell to the home team.
On the hour, Shinji Kagawa played a ball to Van Persie. He allowed it to roll to Rooney, who steered his shot wide. With nine minutes left, a Van Persie free-kick found Smalling, only for the full back to miscue a header with Szczesny scrambling. Perhaps a Smalling free-kick with Van Persie on the end would have produced a different result.
Equally the appearance of Per Mertesacker at the centre of Arsenal’s defence might have changed the scoreline, too. That is a football imponderable. Certainly, the German’s absence with a bug was no worse for Arsenal than it was for United to lose Vidic for the second half, with Rio Ferdinand already sidelined. The captain went to hospital after clashing with De Gea, while Jones was wrongly booked for a brutal collision with Szczesny that was every bit as accidental.
This was a big day for United but it would be wrong to read too much into Arsenal’s first away defeat since March 3 at Tottenham. It was a game lost by the finest margins, at the end of a week that has contained affirming victories against Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund. These things happen.
The superstitious among the Arsenal following may make a wary note of one fact, though. Arsenal have never won the title in a season when they have lost at Old Trafford. That is not a good sign — but a worse one is the sight of Van Persie and Rooney i n such f orm f or Manchester United.