Match Day Thread Manchester United vs. Arsenal 2016/17 Official Match Thread

I guess it's true, Giroud can only score against little teams.

 

All you can really say watching this is... Deja vu. We can kid ourselves that things are different because we made our squad even bigger buying Welbeck v2 and another CM but we aren't winning the league this year are we. Drawing away at a big club is what you need but the manner of the performance coupled with most of our home performances this year are worrying. Dropping too many points at home means away draws aren't all that.

 

The worst Arsenal played this season by a country mile. As for ManU they executed the game plan brilliantly and completely bossed the midfield.

 

The only silver lining is that we would've lost that game in previous seasons. To salvage a draw under these circumstances is a bright side surely?

 

Hate it when we play ****e and lose...losing is ok as long as we play at least ok.
Really hate playing ****, losing and it being the first match of the weekend so at least Gironde has saved you from that!

 

Positive: we got a point which we would not have gotten in previous seasons and loved the look on mourinhos face when that went in.

Negative: we played really bad again at old trafford. Just no positive attacking movement at all. Slightly strange team selection as well. I would have chosen debuchy over jenkinson personally.

Fun fact: this was the first premier league goal against a mourinho team we have scored since Gilberto in 2007.

Would have taken a point at kickoff tbh.

 

We've had worse defending but that has to be one of the worst offensive displays I've seen from a Wenger team, really happy to get a point from that.

I don't think Coquelin and Elneny is a good enough midfield pairing for this kind of game and Monreal continues to struggle this season

 

Prophetic.

Sounds like we were ****, so a point gained by the sounds of things.

Plus Maureen will probably have a meltdown about the pen that wasn't given,

So that's almost like another half a point ...

 

Same old **** to be honest.

November is the month we see if things have changed and guess what?.. NOPE they have not.

Every November we loose ground to the Top teams, sometimes we come back into it around early January only to **** it up again in Feb/March.

Seems strengthening the squad makes no difference. Wenger does the same things over and over again.

 

Not all there is incredible resiliance in this squad,after our opening loss we have played 17 games and were good in probably only 9 of them,we were bloody piss poor in the rest which includes psg and united away where we were down and came back to draw..we came back and beat burnley and also refused tp lose against tottenham and leicester early on.

Definitely things are changing,we are more cautious and easing players very slowly in like Giroud for example,Welbeck will be returning soon..we will only get better,every arsene wenger season has a period of time where his team plays excellent footie for 10 games,that period is yet to come and we seem to have lot of players in prime age with a good balance of youth and experience and utility players like fergie squads from 1996 to 2013 and they started playing only after christmas..we might well do that..give it a chance,things are certainly different.

#COYG!

 

I don't think so. We have a thicker squad but haven't really used it and now here we are again in November with a ton of injuries.

We played full strength teams in games (such as Ludogoretes at home) where key players should have been rested. Now we have the exact same issue we get EVERY November. Key players injured and the annual string of poor results.

November.

2016
Arsenal 1 - Tottenham 1
Arsenal 1 - Manchester United 1

2015
Arsenal 1–1 Tottenham Hotspur
West Bromwich Albion 2–1 Arsenal West Bromwich
Norwich City 1–1 Arsenal

2014
Swansea City 2–1 Arsenal Swansea
Arsenal 1–2 Manchester United London
West Bromwich Albion 0–1 Arsenal

2012
Manchester United 2–1 Arsenal Manchester
Arsenal 3–3 Fulham
Arsenal 5–2 Tottenham Hotspur
Aston Villa 0–0 Arsenal Birmingham

Some Seasons the collapse has come earlier in October but we always seen to follow the same patterns. Wenger does the same things over and over again and expects different results. This is 1. unscientific and 2. the very definition of insanity.

 

I don't know what you guys are talking about your November collapse etc.

It is always collapse in alternate Calendar year. That is what Arsene has done in the last 10 years.

This calendar year is rising year. 2017 is your collapse year.

Please rehash your recent history properly.

 

No recently its been: We have a terrible November catch up with our rivals in December/Jan then have a total meltdown in Feb/March only to finish strongly in April/May and cement Top 4.

 

Good news: 19th of November (and if Chelsea win we are 3 pts behind, if they loose we are 2 pts behind the leader). So lets not get carried away.

Yes we were ****e today. Jenkinson looked knackered. Not sure what Ramsey was doing.

11 more days to go of this month

 

Novembgrr

 

Theo Walcott is a little disappointed with the result but Wenger seems to be taking the draw match positively.

 

I think he is still trying to play weird mind games - trouble is I'm not too sure he knows who he's trying to play with.

 

I'll take a point from yesterday. Away at OT and a fairly poor performance, I'd say it's definitely a point gained.

 

Against any of the top 6 clubs, a point away has to been seen as a positive.

Our record at Old Trafford has been poor in the last 10 years, so for us to perform as disjointed as that, yet still get a point is encouraging. Especially against a Mourinho-led side. Besides, in the last 4 visits we've had to Old Trafford (including all competititons here), we've won 1, lost 1 and drawn 2. That's certainly an improvement on our habitual losses there from 2009-2014.

I thought we were going to get battered. But as poor as we were, United were only slightly better than us, which doesn't really say much for them. When you have a sequence of difficult games, the important thing is to stay in touching distance with the remainder of the pack and so far, we have.

That being said, our level of performance is still a major concern. Without Cazorla, we do miss that link from midfield to attack who can create pockets of space because, going forward, we don't seem to create as much as we are capable of. Cazorla is going to be 32 in December, in the final year of his contract and we haven't got a player who can replace him. So unless we can unravel one, we will have to consider adapting the way we play in the near future because no-one in the squad has his distribution.

 

Agree about cazorla. The only thing I would say is that because he doesn't rely on pace, he could play at the top level until he's around 35 / 36