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| Arsene Wenger |
What a statement this was from
Arsenal. What a comeback. What a riposte.
Arsene Wenger does not need to get
tetchy with his critics. He just needs to inspire more performances like this.
Arsenal have it in them, as was proved on Sunday. They have a title in them,
too, as antagonists such as Jose Mourinho have long suggested. These are fine
players, largely. Yes, there are stronger contenders defensively, but few that
can elevate the beauty in the game to the heights Arsenal reached in their
earliest exchanges with Manchester United.
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.
