[MIC_FIN]

We're making progress, but that 2nd half was hard to watch, just under constant pressure. We certainly didn't deserve to come away with 3 points.

 

[Murder on Zidane's Floor]

Title challenge, however slim, are over.

Very poor from United. Two games, needed three points and got one. Second half at Palace was atrocious. Second half today, atrocious.

ETH surely can see that Scott offered zero this game. Weghorst unfortunately, looks like while he can press, he can't cover any ground so is easily played around.

AWB while is good 1v1 isn't a starting RB for United. Aside from the goal, he ball watched several crosses and could of been caught out.

Eriksen, I'll keep saying it, can't start the big games. The game just passes him by, all I ever see is him being walked past. On the ball, against deeper lying, weaker sides, fine. Against three man midfields with dynamic runners, recipe for disaster. Combine that with McTominay and the Arsenal midfield probably were licking their lips at KO.

Antony, not for me Geoff. Too much stud rolling and nutmeg attempts, not enough accurate passing or crossing. Lacks pace, lacks the ability to beat a man, can't make himself space. If he is worth £85m, then Saka is worth £250m.

Arsenal deserved the win but we made it very easy for them. Now let's focus on top four and the cups.

 

[Buster15]

Still no replay of our penalty shout end of the first half?

We lost. Forget it and move on.

 

[Betson]

In the 2nd half our players did not look like they believed they belonged on the same pitch as the Arsenal players ,, a bit of a mentally midget mindset that has dogged us for a while now. Just all pile into the box and hoof it out and hope that keeps the score down , and it nearly worked.

 

[RedRonaldo]

Better team won.

Feck Arsenal.

 

[elmo]

Name one midfielder who would improve us and we could afford.

Doesn’t take much to replace Scott. He’s literally there just to fill a name on the lineup because he does feck all

 

[Murder on Zidane's Floor]

We're making progress, but that 2nd half was hard to watch, just under constant pressure. We certainly didn't deserve to come away with 3 points.

Attack v defence drill

 

[Jacob]

Dare I say, Casemiro and we'd have at least one point.

 

[Sparky Rhiwabon]

Did Eriksen even used to play in a midfield two in his prime? He doesn’t seem up to the intensity in games like this.

 

[Godfather]

Arse really bought well the last couple of years. And Odegaard. Holy what a player

 

[Wheato]

McTominay is not good enough, even as a back up squad player. Never laid a glove on anyone for the entire game. Never got close to the action, was chasing shadows, out jumped by smaller players, tackled easily, too slow to see out any danger, and when we had the ball he never showed for it.

Shaw backed off Saka far too many times, let him run into the box with the ball. AWB had a mixed performance to be fair. Was at fault for their equaliser.

I think when we did go forward with Rashford, they floundered and looked vulnerable, but we didn't do it near enough.

On balance, Arsenal deserved their win, but for Ten Hag, it's another day of learning about his squad and the changes that need to be made for us to stay in this race over the second half of this season.

 

[Name Changed]

Arsenal were more and more on top as it came towards the end and the manager did nothing to change it up. It's not as if Arsenal weren't making chances. You can't sit back and hope for the best. It would be different if Arsenal were doing nothing but they were creating chances. I think that was very poor by our management to be honest.

Arsenal were the better team and deserved it to be fair though.

 

[Gaidal]

We have a good starting eleven (still missing a proper GK and striker) but we dont have nearly good enough depth to be playing 2 games a week for a full season.

 

[RVN1991]

Would've won with Casemiro starting. Shot ourselves on the foot from the Casemiro yellow, to ETH not making any changes to that awful clearance before they got their third. Haven't been this gutted about a loss in a while .

 

[IRELANDUNITED]

We’re not there yet but we will be.

Yeah I agree 100% no need to be too down about this result. Ten Hag only has this team over 6 months, give it time and we’ll be properly challenging for the title.

 

[ken11]

Would like an Amazon show on us - look what it did for Arsenal. (I just want to watch behind-the-scenes stuff actually...)

 

[A-man]

FC individual Brilliance is back?

Haha yes maybe. I don’t mind brilliant goals but prefer team efforts.

 

[Wing Attack Plan R]

Massive drop off in quality from starters to subs, and that has to be addressed. We were dying for fresh legs and didn’t get them. Bizarre from ETH.

 

[SirAnderson]

Right now with what seems like the title challenge has been dented, I'd really rather Arsenal win it than City so while I'm pissed at the loss, it's not the end of the world.

But let's see where all 3 are after 10 more games.

Our involvement in the cups definitely give them above us the advantage.

 

[Murder on Zidane's Floor]

Doesn’t take much to replace Scott. He’s literally there just to fill a name on the lineup because he does feck all

Literally any.

Luiz, JWP?

 

[KiD MoYeS]

Arteta is a few years at Arsenal and they're finally seeing progress, fair play to them. We are only half a season into Ten Hag's tenure and are all ready discussing title challenges, albeit prematurely. Some great progress. Top four, a cup, and new ownership - would be an AMAZING season. Not too down about the result, annoying to concede so late but if one team were going to win it, it was Arsenal. Fair play to them.

 

[Member 125288]

bunch of cowards today including eth......just sat at our own end hoping for a draw.....pathetic pathetic fecking play.....is this Ten Hag football????

What is this shite? The last twenty minutes looked like a team that was playing their second game in a week versus a team that was playing their third game in eight days.

What did you expect? We’re six months into Ten Hag’s tenure and they’re three years into Arteta’s, get some fecking perspective.

We just lost narrowly, away from home, to the league leaders; stop being whiney children ffs.

 

[Relfy]

Hard to take, but probably a fair reflection of where we are currently, plus the brutal schedule for us since the restart. The squad needs more investment, particularly in midfield - we need another starter in there and use the likes of Eriksen as backup / rotation options.

Get the key players rested during the FA Cup and then kick on with the second half of the season, ensure we finish top 3 and make a charge next season.

 

[Jazz]

Dunno why folks thought we had a chance of challenging for the title. Still a work in progress. This season we need to get top four and hopefully a trophy of some sort if we can. Just something solid to build on.

 

[Kopral Jono]

With Casemiro we would have come home with something. Eriksen and McTominay were dreadful. Wan Bissaka was alright I thought bar Arsenal's first. De Gea looked a bit untidy.

 

[Lee565]

It is so tiresome of watching us having to rely on counter attack tactics against the top sides in the league/Europe for years on end.

We didn't need an 80 million pound winger that has turned out to be a complete flop ( please stop buying attackers from dutch league), we need 80 million spent on the midfield that can behave composed on the ball

 

[NewGlory]

1. Feck Arsenal
2. Feck Glazers for leaving us so thin
3. Really pissed at Antony for being a useless clown for too long now
4. Not having Sancho in this game sucked. The Sancho we were promised and never got, that is

Heartbroken

 

[RedPed]

Sucker punched twice in a week and 5 points dropped as a result. Gutted!

I fecking hate Arsenal with a passion.

 

[Dobba]

Doesn’t take much to replace Scott. He’s literally there just to fill a name on the lineup because he does feck all

Whilst also taking so much you couldn't name someone.

 

[Murder on Zidane's Floor]

Did Eriksen even used to play in a midfield two in his prime? He doesn’t seem up to the intensity in games like this.

Played on the right

 

[Betson]

Perspective is important. Look at where we were 5 months ago to where we are now. I think Arsenal and City are the best two teams in the league without doubt. They were better than us today and we are still suffering from a lack of real depth. McTominay is so far below Casemiro and Odegaard controlled the game in his absence.

Shaw wasn’t getting the help he needed from Rashford or Eriksen and you could argue Fred should have come on earlier.

We are in a great position to take 3rd place this season with the teams below us dropping points pretty regularly. Drawing against Palace was a bigger disappointment than this result in the grand scheme of things. We are still a few players short of challenging Arsenal or City every week.

Look where Arsenal were and where they are now , a big club again showing a big mentality , not so much with us.

 

[DeGea]

Fair result. Those of you who thought we arr at the level of title challengers this season are deluded. Top 4 is the first step and maybe a cup. Need to do that comfortably first, which I think we will. Then next season we can talk about titles. We are still one or two levels below title challengers. Close, but not quite there yet.

 

[Godfather]

We’re not there yet but we will be.

With proper investment sure

 

[Blood Mage]

We lost to a much better coached team

Arteta has had years and plenty of backing in the transfer market to get Arsenal playing like this. Let's not forget how shite they were in his first three years. Ten Hag has gotten off to a much better start and will have us playing fantastic football sooner than you think, but for now we are a work in progress.

 

[Zen]

3-2 at the the home ground of a 50pt mid-season team should be seen as a positive really.... recently, unless it was near the end of the season, Liverpool and City have put some serious spanking on United at their grounds. So I don't know, it's two teams heavily relying on a core, and Arsenals being younger and hardly entertaining Europe showed.

Garnarcho not coming on was weird, why isn't ETH going for the win, it's the only outcome you'd want here, by not going for it, what's the point of a draw? Taking a loss while playing for a draw is the only bad thing from it I guess.

Exceptional fixtures from here, get back to the grind. But that's gonna be hard when Eriksen, Rashford, Shaw and Casemiro are relentlessly playing everything.

 

[DSG]

Things to worry about:
McTominay is absolute shite right now. Depth at CM. Wow, you watch without Casemiro and the number of instances where Casemiro would close down while Scotty backs off and allows ball progression. A real negative as a passer as well.
Holy shit Antony is useless. Those who were slagging Sancho, how do they feel about Antony??? Wow. He is really miserable, I hope Ten Hag can turn this kid around.
Weghorst puts in the work, his hold up play is good, but he frequently releases the ball a bit too late, whereas Martial would quickly put the trough ball in for Marcus. At this stage, I’d rather a Garnacho — Martial — Rashford front 3. See above as well.
Instead of going for the winner, ETH seemed happy with the draw and it cost him. Why he doesn’t sub Garnacho in at the 60-75m mark, I’ll never know. That would at least provide two threats (Garnacho/Rashford) instead of just Marcus.
Bad habits creeping back in. AWB losing a man at the far post. Where have we seen that before?

I have a lot of respect for ETH, but I think he got this one wrong.

 

[Murder on Zidane's Floor]

Sucker punched twice in a week and 4 points dropped as a result. Gutted!

I fecking hate Arsenal with a passion.

Their fans, gillet wearing wankers from Kent and tech bros working in Dalston.

 

[Plant0x84]

Great game, and a decent shift by the lads. We just came up short with what we had available today, but it’s the dropped points against Palace that have really hurt us.

 

[DavidDeSchmikes]

I hate this game sometimes

 

[RedDevilRoshi]

Only have ourselves to blame. That was a pathetic 2nd half performance, last 15 mins especially. Don’t know why ETH brought Garnacho on 20 mins too late.