Great second half. Rice was man of the match 10/10 performance, but Raya was also fantastic again.

We were far better and they offered very little up front. To be honest I don't think they have the players to compete. Too many average players in that team. Our corners are leathal. I can see the panic on defenders faces when we take the corner.

Yup. He didn't put a foot wrong.

Arsenal Vision podcast do a stock rising for players who change their trajectory. His stock is definitely on the up after that performance. He was immense today, that chest back was sublime, the Saliba-style turns under pressure to come away with the ball. Lovely to see him looking so confident.

We’ve gained a player in the squad. But we’ve almost lost another, I’m still really worried about Martinelli, zero attacking outlet from him. Tactically neutered us down that side.

Kiwiors ball over the top to Trossard was exquisite and deserved a goal.

Martinelli seems to have lost his selfish and bloody mindedness that made him dangerous. He almost was obsessed with scoring to the point of putting himself first over the team. Now his decision making seems lethargic

Brilliant result.

Saliba and Rice were majestic.

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First time we have beaten them four times in a row
Manchester United ...... the name once spoken in awe , they were THE team .

Busby babes , Best , Charlton , Law , Keane , Beckham , Ronaldo ; colourful high stature managers Busby , Docherty , Ferguson .

Swashbuckling football , the biggest crowds ...... even when they went down to the old Second Division [ 1975 76 ? ] they still attracted crowds of 60 - 45000 while Arsenal in the First were pulling in 23.000 .

...but as the teams milled around after the final whistle I was struck by the thought of just how ordinary they have become ........ a collection of nobodies .... changing their manager every five minutes .

.

Thought the same G7 ... seemed more no nonsense clear the ball rather than indulging little intricate pass exchanges near our goal that raise my blood pressure .

Okay the fun's over , next up got to crawl under the house investigate why the floor of the laundry is swelling up . lino lifting

Yes. A few years ago I thought it inevitable that they would be back at the top, but that seems way off now. In the past they reacted well when we and Chelsea challenged their dominance, but it may be that regularly being second best in Manchester has been too big a blow to take?

Man U were limited but better than expected. They stiffled us with quite a defensive approach without getting penned in, and gave Ødegaard zero space.
We were the better team though no doubt. Those corners were a problem for Man U all night, we could have scored 4-5 from those corners.

Rice superb, Kiwior and Zinchenko more than did their jobs, loved that Timber got his first goal - he was great again. Saliba imperious at the back and a goal off his backside. Raya’s save from De Ligt was a big moment. Probably the best gk we’ve had since Lehmann.

Love beating those Mancs, I won’t ever forgive them for the unfair battles we had with them.

2 points gained on Liverpool.

Feel sorry for Ramsdale, he is playing for another relegation-bound team. That would be his third team at this level.

And Nketiah has played 9 games for Palace with no goals or assists to show for it.

Martinelli seems in such a rut. When he gets the ball in a promising position his ceiling seems to be to winning a corner or at best a speculative cross. Scoring or creating doesn't seem to be uppermost in his mind. It's hard to fathom. Has he been over-coached?

Trossard plays with a lot more purpose, and is much more of a threat on transition at the moment. The decision-making and quality of passing isn't always there but the intent is.

No doubt that Raya is the better keeper, though. Most importantly, he is as cool as a cucumber, and makes very few unforced errors.

Loving the outrage and general annoyance is scoring from corners is causing.
If it was so easy every team could do it
If you know it’s such a weapon perhaps don’t try to do a flash chip up to volley a clearance and mess it up to give us a corner which we scored from - well done Rashford

Great to see Liverpool drop 2 points in a game we needed them to drop them in. I am slightly concerned that they scored 3 and could have had more away to Newcastle. Their fire power and number of chances they create is very good, even at one of the toughest away grounds.

A few tougher games without Salah will reel them in I’m sure though

Everton away next for them - I don’t hold out much hope for Everton giving them a good game in the same way Spurs make it tough for us

I agree, Raya is much better than Ramsdale. I just feel sorry for Ramsdale. Hope he gets into a better club next season.

They envy our effectiveness from corners, sour grapes

What is missed when people are analysing our corners is that our opponents turn up leave all their creative and expressive players on the bench (last night Anthony, Erickson, Rashford, Casemiro) and instead play combative types like Mount then try and do a thou shall not pass thing where they are just trying to defend and counter only. This happens all the time with our opponents and it stifles their own creativity and plays into our hands I think. We can work the ball more progressively and win corners.

13 corners to nil ! I mean even if we weren’t that drilled on them there must have been a chance of one of them going in. Analyse the routines all you want folks but if one team gets 13 and the other gets zero what’s likely to happen

The moaning about this is hysterical from rivals. Suck it up snowflakes. Hopefully we pop another one in at the weekend to keep up momentum

It is ridiculous, as is pointing out every little block and shirt pull that we get away with, and wondering why refs are adopting such a laissez-faire attitude. What is missed is that if every blocks and shirt pull were blown up, we'd have about six penalities every game. Letting the physical stuff go massively favours the defending team.

We are not scoring so many goals from set pieces because of the 'dark arts'. We are getting them because of the quality of delivery from both sides, how well-drilled we are, and how physically imposing we are.

We are also not the first team in history to make corners a big weapon. Tony Adams was talking about how they used to do it in the Graham period. Bould at the near post, someone to get in the goalkeeper's way, and Adams coming round to the back post.

I noticed our friend Jarrod Gillet was having a good long hard look at our second goal on var to see if he could find any way to chalk it off. I assume they were looking for offside. We’ve had a decision v Brighton in the last where the var couldn’t conclusively prove Martinelli was offside because of the number of bodies in the way but concluded he probably was so ruled the goal out - I thought we were going to get the same again

Yes, United completely sacrificed attacking ambition to contain us. They did it decently for 45 minutes but we simply overpowered them in the second half.

Fulham will be tricky but we should have too much for them.

On the corners, it wasn’t hugely big guys getting on the end of them last night, timber is under 6ft, Partey maybe just 6ft. We were missing Gabriel and Calafiori two of our most aggressive at attacking the ball, and also had Merino on the bench who is brilliant in the air, and 6ft 2/3 Rice takes the corners. It was only really Saliba and Havertz as giants in there but Man U had Maguire and De Ligt….still couldn’t stop us.
Height is actually a small part of it. I’d say
Quality of delivery 50%
Movement 20%
Aggressiveness 20%
Height 5%
Dart arts 5%

Every team has tall players who could easily mark out tall players. Look more at the defending team than the attacking if you want to do sniping analysis

I said before the game, our corners are now almost self fulfilling, the crowd get up for it, their team shrinks with nerves - teams are partly beaten on our corners before they even get taken

They analysed everything, but completely overlooked the butt of Saliba

Fulham will have a fired-up Emile Smith Rowe in midfield

The Beeb last night was full of comments of dark arts at corners and yes we do engage in blocking shirt pulling shoving etc. So does everyone else it is just we are better at it. Also Manure didn't look particularly good defensively from corners. It looked like they couldn't make up their mind whether they were marking zonally or man to man. Also to win corners you have to be playing front foot football. We get lots of corners and therefore can score from them because of how we play.

Let's hear it for the Corner Kings!!! Arsenal at its finest.

Apparently 24% of man u’s goals this season have come from corners, the highest % in the league…..

The 3 teams who score more set pieces that anyone else over the last 3 seasons are Arsenal, City and Liverpool. The best teams being the best at an important aspect of the game shouldn’t really be a surprise.

Well yes, but that amounts to a monumental 4 goals.

The delivery is the key. Rice and Saka put in fantastic corners. Rice's were superb last night. Saka sometimes hit a low trajectory fizzed ball. It's brilliant.

100%. You can go on about the set piece coach and the variation of the movement is impressive but Saka has mastered the art of beating the first man but getting enough dip to bring it in the danger area superbly. Rice likewise

Bournemouth ridiculously wasting opportunities to finish spurs off here. If the mutants score they will be kicking themselves

So since winning 0-4 at City, they've drawn with Fulham and lost to Bournemouth. It's classic Spurs.

Bournemouth 1-0 Spurs, Bournemouth with an xG of 3.31, the last time Arsenal concede an xG that high was 2021!

The top 4 in the league is the top 4 at the end for the season (in whatever order) by far the best and most consistent teams in the league

Gidday Old Man .... Fergie retiring would have been a major reason for their decline ; Man U's last title was achieved with a pretty threadbare squad
really a tribute to Alex's motivational powers I thought .
Couple that with a series of less than capable managers , your home town opposition are suddenly awash with cash with very competent manager .

All contributed to the perfect storm to hit Old Trafford . Not sure whether to feel happy or sad about that .

On the one hand your want your main rivals to lose every game but then again you think back of the excitement of our clashes when they were good .

Keane and Vieira ready to kick seven shade s of sh***t out of each other was far more mouthwatering prospect than yesterdays hum drum affair .

The Overlap with Neville, Carragher, Keane and Wrighty did a watch along for the midweek games. I skimmed through it today and it harks back to the classic Sky fanzone stuff, and modern day YouTubers, but in a way they were all better in this than they are as pundits because whilst they were all hugely partisan for their team they were also watching and talking as ex players without a filter or a narrative to run or line to tow.

It showed how passionate Carragher in particular is about Liverpool, which also shows that he can’t ever be neutral about any Liverpool rival, no matter how much he tries

It really is.

At the start of the season I said by January for Ange. He was roundly booed by their own fans at the final whistle yesterday. Next up for them an in form Chelsea.

Yes, the matches against United in Arsene's first decade were epic - far more exciting than the North London derbies of the time. Two great clubs going at each other with real bite, and in the case of some of United's players, spite. Although top class they had loads of players it was easy to dislike which added to the tension - e.g. Sheringham, Rooney, Ronaldo, Giggs, Van Nistlerooy and Keano. Looking at United today only Fernandes gets on my tits, the rest I have little feeling about.

I thought Saliba was imperious against United and what I really liked was his willingness to come into the midfield with the ball and open up space for others. He doesn't normally do that as much and it really added another dimension to our play.

Of course it does not come without its risks and undoubtedly we will occasionally be caught out but I'd like to see more of it.

It also shows how strong the league is. Manure are 13th and that is a true reflection. There are almost no easily away games.

Fulham were really good against them and were unlucky not to win. We'll have our work cut out.