Going to be more of this from these two this season, is it? Oh great.
As the away side, Arsenal at least have some excuse for being pretty boring and uninspired after Altay Bayindir placed a pretty routine down-the-throat corner directly onto the head of Riccardo Calafiori, who we swear laughed as he gently nuzzled it over the line with as much force as it takes to go nose-to-snout with a big stupid friendly labrador.
Still, we had hoped for more from them – some sense that they might have upped their game from last season, or that they were keen to see what Viktor Gyokeres could actually do if they, you know, gave him the ball in front of goal or something. Feels a bit weird to cry out for a good centre-forward and then pretend he doesn’t exist – not that he especially helped himself when the ball did come his way. Maybe another day.
We are left once again that Arteta has grown much too conservative for his own good. With the home crowd deflated by that all-too-familiar route to goal, United were there to be got at again. Kill the game off, lads? Nah. But hey: they won on the road, so fine. Chalk it up as a rugged, resilient victory.
Manchester United meanwhile…well, they were clearly better than Arsenal for much of the game, but to come from a goal behind, they had to be a lot better. It turns out playing nine of the side that stank the Premier League out last season plus the actually-good Bryan Mbeumo and Mattheus Cunha still isn’t a vast improvement. Better, but not great.
United fans have continued reason to feel frustrated about that. For us as neutrals, though, their greatest sin in the nine-month old Ruben Amorim era is just how persistently dull they are for such long spells of games.
The repeated errors Bayindir and Andre Onana have committed in that time as a valid talking point, but the criticism has been amplified by the fact that United have so rarely given us hacks anyone else of note to talk about. They only continue to call Old Trafford the Theatre of Dreams because it’s been a fantastic place to go to catch up on your sleep.
Here, Mattheus Cunha was the only United player to bring any kind of verve to the side in the first half. Seeing Cunha driving his way through the entire Arsenal defence several times in the first half was particularly fun, and it took a stupendous reaction save from David Raya to keep Arsenal in front as the former Wolves man shot from a narrow angle.
It wasn’t until the final half hour that United really started to click into gear. They can take some encouragement from that; it’s something, anyway.
Mbeumo looked especially bright in the second half, and helped inspire United into finishing the game strongly. Amorim’s side showed quite a bit more promise here than they did at almost any other point last season. Cunha, Mbeumo and ever-dynamic substitute Amad should have better luck against less defensively capable sides than Arsenal – which, in total fairness, is basically everybody in this division.
Until we see that happen, though, promise is all it is, and there is clearly still plenty more work to be done in the transfer market – particularly between the sticks.
There have been plenty of other sides who have not been anything like their best and have issues to address: Liverpool, Newcastle, Villa.
But for the sake of our continued sanity over the course of the season, it is United and Arsenal we most want to see raise their game and show us something more.