Arsenal vs Man United Pre-Season friendly match report
Mikel Arteta and his squad walked away 2-1 winners against Premier League rivals Manchester United and their manager Erik Ten Hag in our second game of our USA pre-season tour. Starting the tour off with a bang and coming away victorious after a good 90 minutes of football from all involved. Some valuable minutes in the legs of our first team and some academy projects too. Here’s a run down of everything that happened.
For the first half Arteta fielded mainly experienced players, lining up a strong team with the two 17-year-old academy additions Ethan Nwaneri and Ayden Heaven. Arsenal started off the game looking strong but also a bit rusty. Nwaneri had an early chance, but it was saved by United’s keeper Onana, while Reiss Nelson looked o have been taken down in the box but nothing was given.
United seemed to click a bit faster and were creating some early chances and it didn’t take them long to take advantage of Arsenal’s sloppiness. Marcus Rashford pinged a ball towards a running Rasmus Hojlund who young Ayden Heaven was trying to keep up with, Hojlund managed to use his strength to get past and around Heaven and came 1 on 1 with Karl Hein and slipped the ball through his legs to make it 1-0 to Manchester United.
Arsenal then began to tighten up their play and it wasn’t long until we managed to get one back when Zinchenko slipped a ball through to Nwaneri who spotted the run of Jesus in the box, squaring the ball into his feet. Jesus calmly tapped the ball into the back of the United net, beating the keeper and levelling the scores. I do have to admit, it did look offside, but wasn’t given so we will take it.
The second half started, and Arteta kept the team mostly the same but took Nwaneri and Heaven off and brought Oulad M’Hand and Kiwior on. Odegaard had a great chance early in the second half but was miraculously saved by United’s keeper.
Arteta again looked to his bench in the 63rd and 71st minute and brought on mostly the rest of the bench, including Gabriel Martinelli who took no time to make a difference, scoring the winner after being on the pitch for only 10 minutes when Myles Lewis-Skelly, another 17-year-old academy project, switched the ball out to Martinelli on the wing, Martinelli took on United’s young defender Scanlon, dropped his shoulder, took a quick look up and fired the ball into the bottom left hand corner to win the game for Arsenal.
There was a penalty shoot out after the game, just for the sake of the fans, where United got to save a bit of their blushes winning the shoot out 4-3 with Vieira, Martinelli and Gabriel all scoring from the spot and Havertz and Kiwior had their shots saved by Onana.
All in all, it was good to see the boys back in action and getting some valuable minutes into their legs before the real work begins.
Daisy Mae
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I expect the young Brazilian (Martineli) to have a massive season.
Hojlund’s goal showed the importance of a physically-dominant CB like Saliba and a powerful CF like Zirkzee
Jesus made another excellent Cruyff turn and was full of tricks, but it would only be a matter of time before a huge EPL CB outmuscle and injure him
As for Martinelli, his dribbling skills and pace looked great. We won’t need a new LW with Jesus, Trossard and him in the squad
Problem with Zirkzee is he is not a scorer. Glad we dodged that bullet and did not get him.
We need a scoring striker and a top midfielder to partner with Odegaard and Rice.
Hein has played well; good distribution and powerful kicks, some good saves, maybe he can be backup GK and save us some funds.
Zirkzee’s productivity was pretty good if we count his assists. If I were Arteta, I would choose him over Kane and Ronaldo
The need for physical players in the PL is true in general and especially necessary in the middle (whether at the top or back). The goal certainly showed Heaven the quality he will be up against in the future if he progresses.
Jesus looks to have bulked up considerably. It looks like he really hit the weight room. Maybe he’s tired of messing around, lol.
I don’t know if it was just the invigorated Martinelli or if it was just as much the inadequate defense. I really hope the later. His well timed bursts of speed were very exciting.
Yes, Martinelli looked more impactful when he came in as a substitute. No need for Nico Williams
I agree. I meant to say I hope the “former” rather than “later” in my 2nd to last sentence. I have assumed our interest in Williams has been likely generated entirely by the media from the beginning.
@Gai LW that area has been sorted long ago. My worry is if Viera can effectively deputies for Saka because Saka needs a deputy at RW. Watching the match love yesterday Nwanery was very impressive but Jorginho can’t be depended upon. He was slow at times and unable to match ManU pace and ball movement.
Heaven, Nwanery and Skelly has very huge tarlent, I don’t know how Arteta will use them. Arsenal ball control was very good yesterday and Carl Hein growing in confidence.
Nwaneri could be Saka’s and Odegaard’s backup. This setup could also prevent him from moving to a new club two years later
Yes gai, Heaven wasn’t strong enough for Utd’s goal, plus the shot went straight through Hein’s legs.
Martinelli did look back to his best, as you say, pacey and skillful.
I was a little disappointed with
Nwaneri last night. I was expecting him to be more involved in the game, though Onana did pull off a good save from a shot of his, even though he was given offside.
Nwaneri made an assist and was generally better when he played the right-sided AM role
Where are the Martinelli out brigade?
Good display in terms of gameplay though, just like the game against Bournemouth but low scoring numbers has kinda make it look basic, if an average fan point of view is to be considered. Liverpool next.
Your not an average kinda fan then I take it Vamos ?
One of those experienced fans that as knowledge over some of us everyday fans ?
Must be nice to know the ins and outs of what’s going on in Arteta/edus (lol)brains .
What are you talking about?
“if an average fan point of view is to be considered”
I may have got that wrong but from your post ,it looked like you are not an average fan .
Not that hard to get the gist of my post beforehand buddy .
An average fan doesn’t mean a fan with little football knowledge as you seemingly misunderstood it to be. When i said that, i meant the vast majority of fans. Meaning what a most fans who are not necessarily into details take will be when a game is of low number of goals or of a lot of passing the ball rather than individual flairs that fans find “entertaining” as opposed to football managers and experts take as “unacceptable”. Still not sure about the “ins and outs of what’s going on in Arteta/Edu’s brains” though.