3 positives and 2 negatives from Arsenal’s decisive win over Man Utd

Arsenal beat Manchester United 2-0 on Wednesday night as they continued their bid to stay in the title race.

Jurrien Timber opened the scoring for his side when he headed in from Declan Rice’s corner for his first Gunners goal. Arsenal’s lead was doubled thanks to another corner kick. Bukayo Saka’s pass was met by Thomas Partey at the back post, whose header across goal was denied by William Saliba.

In a game that had a huge impact on their title bid, there were a number of positives and negatives for Arsenal to take away from it.

Arsenal have become arguably the most dangerous team in the world from set pieces and they enforced that argument even more against Man United.

Both of the Gunners’ goals came from corners, one from each side. Declan Rice’s pass was met by Jurrien Timber, who glanced a fine header past Andre Onana to put his side ahead. While Arsenal’s second goal was a bit more of a fluke, their set-piece brilliance was still highlighted. Thomas Partey got on the end of Bukayo Saka’s corner at the back post to head over to William Saliba who deflected it in.

Teams still seem to have so much trouble defending the Gunners’ set pieces despite their brilliance being highlighted on the pitch and in the media for so long. Long may this dominance continue for Arsenal.

Despite their win and dominant performance, Arsenal started the game quite slowly as they conceded to United to check parts of the opening 25 minutes.

Not only did they allow the visitors to take control, the Gunners were also left frustrated in attack. Both Gabriel Martinelli and Thomas Partey missed golden chances to put their side ahead in the first half.

The result is what mattered for the Gunners, but it would be nice to see them attack games and dominate teams from the start. That has been the case in recent games against Sporting CP and West Ham, so it would have been nice to see the same attitude against United.

To be continued on the next slide…