ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE Manchester Utd 2 Arsenal 1: IT IS not often that the losers get to patronise the victors. Then again, Arsenal are a far from conventional club and the manager, Arsene Wenger, duly rummaged for some gracious words about Manchester United. "They have won a game today they should not have won, so that is a quality as well," he said.
Wenger’s conclusion was incomplete. A self-destructive Arsenal had connived their own downfall after being 1-0 ahead. The Frenchman has taken great strides towards producing another line-up of athleticism and grace, but a robust mentality is yet to be implanted.
The lack of a trophy since 2005 is more than a statistic. Those who had little or nothing to do with that dry spell are affected by it in any case. Arsenal have forgotten how to take victories from key occasions. United scooped the points, in part, because it is in their nature, after three consecutive Premier League titles, to rally at a moment of crisis.
Indeed, Alex Ferguson’s team have been beaten just once by Arsenal over the last eight encounters in all competitions. Wenger himself appreciates that know-how has dwindled with each barren campaign. “Experience is linked with calmness,” he said on Saturday evening. “We were a bit too nervous and rushed a little bit our decisions in some situations. We look mature in the way we are positioned on the pitch but individually there was still nervousness in some situations where it was not needed.”
The winner for United was flabbergasting. Ryan Giggs, who managed to shake off his initial drabness when his side got into trouble, flighted a free-kick from the right in the 64th minute. The height of the ball presented no difficulty and Abou Diaby was unchallenged, but he still contrived to head past his own goalkeeper, Manuel Almunia.
Injuries have hindered the development of a midfielder whom Wenger calls “an athlete, a powerhouse”, but no such excuses are available to Almunia. The Spaniard was suckered at the United equaliser, after 58 minutes, when he brought down Wayne Rooney. The attacker was chasing a Giggs through ball and had nudged it towards the flank just before the goalkeeper made contact with him. Rooney swept in the penalty.
Arsenal can be unsettled all too readily. They have not shed their old fault of complaining when the opposition decline to play the match on their terms. Wenger, returning to the issue of Eduardo da Silva’s dive for a penalty against Celtic last week, grumbled that the sport had a greater problem with “players who make repeated fouls and get out of a game without a yellow card”.
It is understood that he was referring on Saturday to United’s Darren Fletcher, yet the midfielder had a fine if combative match. You could sympathise with Wenger’s grievance purely because a pettifogging referee, Mike Dean, discovered cause to book nine players, half-a-dozen of them from Arsenal. He also sent Wenger to the stands for booting a water bottle when a late equaliser by Robin van Persie was justly chalked off because William Gallas had been in an offside position.
The sole outrageous offence dealt with by Dean was Emmanuel Eboue’s wanton dive following an imaginary challenge.
Arsenal should still remember with satisfaction a great deal of what they did at Old Trafford. Andrey Arshavin ought to have had a penalty when Fletcher barged into him, but within moments the attacker had crashed home a drive in the 40th minute as the United defence backed off him.
Ben Foster could conceivably have done better with his effort to stop the shot, but a wonderful save three minutes after the interval denied Arsenal total control. Arshavin went past the right-back John O’Shea and Van Persie seemed to have converted the cut-back until Foster blocked with an outstretched left foot.
Shortly before United’s winner, Van Persie was also to smack the bar with a free-kick. Arsenal will have to draw what comfort they can from the knowledge that they had largely played at a higher level than the reigning champions. “I just hope that this undeserved defeat will not take any confidence away,” said Wenger.
United are still casting around for means to adapt now Cristiano Ronaldo has gone and the type of footballers picked in their 4-3-3 structure gave them a more cautious air than Arsenal. Ferguson flatly declined, for nearly the whole game, to give Rooney a partner in attack because his priority was to ensure that his team was never outnumbered in midfield. That altered only in the last five minutes, when Dimitar Berbatov was introduced so that United could hit on the break as the visitors took risks.
Aesthetics received little consideration, but Ferguson’s battleplan, assisted by freakish events here and there, prevailed. Arsenal will at least sense how tough it is going to be to land the title for the first time since 2004.
Guardian Service
