RAISING STAKES

United skewered as Gunners grab fourth

ARSENAL drove a stake through Manchester United’s Champions League hopes to give a major boost to their own.

Granit Xhaka’s piercing strike secured the points here as the Gunners took fourth place back from Spurs, who failed to see off Brentford yesterday evening

Nuno Tavares’s opener and Bukayo Saka’s penalty fired the Gunners into a two-goal lead before Cristiano Ronaldo put the grief of losing his baby son to one side to pull one back for the visitors, his 100th Premier League goal for the club. United had already hit the woodwork when Diogo

Dalot’s effort rattled the bar, and they went on to strike it twice more.

Firstly, when a penalty from Bruno Fernandes (right) hit the outside of Aaron Ramsdale’s right post and then again when Dalot’s shot was pushed on to the opposite upright by the Gunners keeper.

But Xhaka’s sweet thunderbolt from distance put the game beyond United and the seal on a very good week for the Gunners after their 4-2 win against Chelsea on Wednesday.

United fans will argue they deserved a draw, and maybe they did based on the number of chances they created.

Interim boss Ralf Rangnick rightly argued they deserved a penalty when Cedric Soares fell on the ball shortly before Arsenal’s second goal and they also could have had one when Tavares locked arms with Anthony Elanga. Rangnick also felt the decision to rule out a second Ronaldo goal for a marginal offside was wrong.

But, having dropped Harry Maguire after a difficult week for the defender on and off the field, Rangnick put out a side that were rickety at the back.

A number of blunders, including failed attempts to clear the ball by Raphael Varane and Alex Telles leading up to Tavares’s goal, cost them dear. The best that incoming boss Erik ten Hag can now hope for is a spot in the Europa League and there are no guarantees United won’t have to settle for the Europa Conference League instead.

For Mikel Arteta and Co, there is still plenty of work to be done in the race for the top four.

But this victory, just like the win at Stamford Bridge, was a statement of intent and, naturally, the win was

lapped up by every home fan inside the Emirates.

Amongst the elation, there should be frustration as well about those nine dropped points against Crystal

Palace, Brighton and Southampton in the dismal run which preceded the

Chelsea game. Had they picked up even three of them, they’d be above Chelsea in third this morning.

Still, this was much more like it and Arteta

(left) was rightly delighted with the outcome. He said: “It was a phenomenal game for the spectators. For us, it was a bit of a roller-coaster. We wanted to start the game really fast, dominate it, create issues, be really vertical – and we managed to do that.

“We dominated big periods in the first half and we scored two goals. But that momentum when they scored left us a bit cold. So we had a

five, 10-minute period there where we weren’t sure what to do.

“In the second half, we didn’t start good again. We had some problems to occupy certain spaces that they are really good

at and they have so much quality to exploit that. Then, when they missed the penalty and we changed the shape and then we scored the goal, that’s when the game got where we wanted again.”

It was ultimately a dismal day for Rangnick, and it didn’t help that ahead of the match former United star Paul Scholes had claimed Jesse Lingard told him the dressing room was “an absolute mess” and “a disaster”.

Rangnick said: “I don’t know, you have to ask Jesse Lingard if you have this info.

“The whole group get on reasonable with each other. I’m not daring to say they get on well with each other but I don’t see there is an issue in regard to the locker room.”