A goal up after six
minutes, two clear a minute later, by the time Alexis Sanchez hit the third
with three-quarters of the game remaining, the locals were in rapture. How
could this be the same team that lost to Olympiacos at home just five days
previously? Up to second place, how could this be the club supposedly teetering
on the brink of crisis?
Arsenal were outstanding,
laying down a marker to rival Manchester City’s win over Chelsea by the same
margin in August. Yet Chelsea, as has subsequently been revealed, are a team
that have lost their way. A few have taken lumps out of them this season.
United, by contrast, were league leaders going into this weekend, Louis van
Gaal credited with adding defensive steel, even if it has been at the expense
of excitement. Arsenal dismantled that theory inside 20 minutes.
This serves as a
blueprint, too. The cavalier football Van Gaal has sacrificed makes them less
able to chase a game down like they did in the old days. They had 84 minutes to
get back at Arsenal here and failed to score. It is hard to imagine that would
have happened when Sir Alex Ferguson was in charge.
So go at United hard and
early and test that famous back four. United fight-backs no longer strike fear
in the heart. Petr Cech had his moments, but nothing that will be long
remembered. He made very good saves because he is a very good goalkeeper – the
best at this club by some distance – but there was nothing here that the first
choice at any elite club would not be expected to stop.
This has been a season
that defies logic – from Chelsea’s implosion, to the rise of Leicester City and
West Ham’s habit of winning every game they are expected to lose, and vice
versa – and this match was no exception. At the end of a week that has seen
Wenger mislay his famous cool following criticism of the display and selection
against Olympiacos, Arsenal took United apart.
In the first half, at
least, one would have estimated 15 places between the teams in Arsenal’s
favour. United could not get the ball and, when they did, could do nothing with
it. There has been a trade-off this season. United may be dull, it is said, but
at least they are tight at the back. In a league of sub-standard defences, that
might be enough, as it was for Chelsea in the second half of last season.
Yet Arsenal stunned them
with their pace and attacking energy, Mesut Ozil the craftsman, Sanchez and
Theo Walcott a front-line as formidable as any seen in this campaign. They
settled for three, but could have been five clear by the break. United, with
Ashley Young at left back, clearly had some counter-attacking plans of their
own. They never got to execute them.
When Arsenal are in this
mood, containing them is a full-time job. There were 45 minutes gone when
United finally got a chance at goal, Anthony Martial shrugging off Per
Mertesacker far too easily before turning to shoot and being thwarted by Cech.
But there is no correlation – and you’d be a fool and a madman to make one –
between selecting a world-class goalkeeper and being rewarded with world-class
saves, and picking his inferior and having the ball dropped over your
goal-line.
Cech was flawless again
after half-time, too, keeping out Young, then Wayne Rooney and bravely diving
at the feet of Bastian Schweinsteiger. Starting him in every big game should be
the easiest decision Wenger ever has to make.
Anyway, enough of that
unpleasantness. This was a happy, happy day for Wenger and Arsenal, a
performance of such wit and ferocity that it had Van Gaal frantically
reorganising at half-time, Memphis Depay sacrificed for the physical presence
of Marouane Fellaini and Matteo Darmian getting the treatment his display at
right-back deserved, replaced by Antonio Valencia.
It gave United a very
offensive appearance – three midfielders in the back four, if one includes
Daley Blind, but it made scant difference. This was all about Arsenal.
It wasn’t just the
quantity of goals, but the quality, too. Every one a belter, starting in the
sixth minute with a beautifully-weighted ball inside the line from Aaron Ramsey
to Ozil, cutting out Blind entirely. Ozil remains the most infuriating player
in the Premier League in many ways, anonymous in some games, a virtuoso the
next. This was football’s equivalent of a finely tuned Stradivarius. Reaching
the by-line Ozil cut the ball back for Sanchez at the near post, the Chilean
adding a theatrical flourish of his own, converting with a wonderful back-heel
flick. It was a move that brought Wenger to his feet. He is never happier then
when his team turn the physical into art, and they could have performed that
goal at the Royal Albert Hall.
The next was no less
memorable, beginning instead of ending with a Sanchez back-heel that on this
occasion put the excellent Walcott away down the left. He saw Ozil in support
and played him in, the German with the time and the calm to side-foot the ball
into the left corner of David De Gea’s goal. There were seven minutes gone and,
already, the game was slipping from United’s grasp.
Just 13 minutes later,
Sanchez took it away from them completely. He collected a pass from Walcott on
the left edge of the area and cut inside. Darmian’s challenge was weak, Juan
Mata was the wrong side and too concerned with giving a penalty away and Chris
Smalling was simply outwitted, before Sanchez struck a quite superb shot, for
one of the best goals that will be seen here all season. And the competition,
as always, will be fierce.
Indeed, with a little more
accuracy, Arsenal’s goal of the season contest could have been held last night.
In the 26th minute, Santi Cazorla teed the ball up by dinking a header over his
marker, met it on the other side but shot wide – and ten minutes before
half-time a lovely Sanchez chip put Ramsey in, but he volleyed over.
Understandably, the second-half saw
Arsenal settling, United probing and the numbers – shots at goal, possession –
gave a false sense of how close this match was. Whenever United threatened,
though, Cech was equal to it and the best chance still fell to Arsenal when
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain hit the bar. Even had United scored, it would have been
too late; the game was long gone. If Arsenal could find a way of bottling this
elixir, Wenger would never have to answer impertinent questions again.
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