Problems mounting for faltering United
The ferocity and quality that these two teams once showed in midfield battles were lacking here
It has not got so bad at Old Trafford that Manchester United are losing at home to Arsenal yet – now that really would be a sign things have gone south – but it was hard, watching this, to know exactly what Ole Gunnar Solskjaer thinks he is building.
Sure, he is not the only one to have his work cut out. Unai Emery has a similar task on his hands trying to make sense of Arsenal, a club who have had a lot longer to get used to looking up at those they used to look down on. But nowhere is the spotlight in this country more unforgiving than at Old Trafford and, while Solskjaer was under no illusions this summer that a tough season lay ahead, he probably had not bargained on a start this troubling.
It is certainly hard to know which was the more disconcerting statistic – that this is United’s worst start to a top-flight campaign for 30 years, or that Solskjaer has two points fewer from his 28 Premier League games in charge than Jose Mourinho did from his final 28 league matches with the club.
You used to watch this fixture with a sense of awe and amazement at what might come next. United and Arsenal fans observed this game more in hope that their team would commit less mistakes than the other and escape with the points than any great expectation of being wowed or inspired. The table beforehand said this was eighth versus 11th and, by the midway point of this scrappy, low quality affair, even that looked flattering.
Could you imagine Patrick Vieira having ducked out of the way of Scott McTominay’s shot like Granit Xhaka did. Yes, Granit, it’s called taking one for the team. Or could you have pictured Roy Keane exiting the scene as anonymously as Jesse Lingard did with 15 minutes to go?
It was unfortunate that the error which led to Arsenal equalising came from the boot of young Axel Tuanzebe who, up until that point, was one of the better players on show in an unfamiliar left back position. But, once Arsenal were level, did any United fan have any real faith their side would nick a winner, even if they were the one knocking hardest on the door by the end?
United have now failed to score more than once in 18 of their past 21 games. Marcus Rashford was not fully fit – and deserves some credit for making himself available – but he is having a tough time of it in front of goal and needs assistance.
Solskjaer had called for more goals from his midfielders beforehand and McTominay duly obliged, his goal a rare moment of quality on the night, and reward for his determination, almost single-handedly at times, to try to drive his team on.
All things considered, Paul Pogba should be dominating games like this, particularly given the make-up of the opposition midfield, but he drifted through proceedings, the occasional flicker of life undermined by too many lost balls. “If we gave the ball away cheaply at United it was criminal,” Roy Keane, the club’s former captain, said afterwards on Sky Sports.
And what does Solskjaer do about a problem like Lingard, whose last goal at Old Trafford in the Premier League against Arsenal in December last year and whose confidence appears to be eroding week by week? It was easy to forget Lingard was playing and his ineffectiveness in the No 10 role has become a pressing concern, much as Xhaka’s deployment at the base of Arsenal’s midfield is doing his side few favours.
Perhaps if United had real pace and penetration out wide, Lingard would find life a lot easier but United’s latest answer to their longstanding problem on the right flank currently appears to be Andreas Pereira, a snapshot of their ills. Solskjaer spent much of the first half shouting instructions to the midfielder and pointing to where he should be – shades of Mourinho with Luke Shaw against Everton in 2017.
The last recognised right winger United bought was Wilfried Zaha in 2013 and, as McTominay surged forward at one point, ready to play a pass into the wide open space on the right only to discover Pereira had drifted infield and Ashley Young was still in his own half, you could imagine seventy odd thousand frustrated souls screaming inside for a Jadon Sancho type.
Arsenal are still without a Premier League win at Old Trafford since 2006 but there was little else for United to shout about on the night.