Arsenal 2:0 Manchester United

Foxbatt · Dec 29, 2019

We need to start compact. I would play Matic for a starter along with Pogba(if he is fit) and then Fred in midfield. I would keep James on the bench and start with Greenwood and Martial. Let Mustaphi and co get tired and then lose Rashford and James on them. We cannot afford to give them space in the middle of the park.

Arteta made the same mistakes Ole makes. He does not know how to be proactive. Arsenal was losing the game and before Chelsea scored he should have taken at least two players off and put on two midfield players who can run like crazy.

ColvaleGoa · Dec 29, 2019

meamth said:
Can't wait to see Martinelli vs AWB.

Man's going to crush that kid's confidence.

Poor AwB...will he ever recover?

sunama · Dec 29, 2019

I honestly can't see anything but a win for us, here.
AFC are not a good team, but right now we are in a good run of form, with our attackers brimming with confidence.
The teams we struggle against are minnows. We are able to raise our game against top 6 rivals and we've seen this consistently.

I am VERY confident of a straight forward win.

fergiesarmy1 · Dec 29, 2019

el3mel said:
Gonna destroy them with counters as usual.

Ssshhhhhh - Arteta doesnt know our game plan against arsenal

fergiesarmy1 · Dec 29, 2019

meamth said:
With Pogba rested again, I expect us to smash these miserable cnuts.

Fixed

MancunianAngels · Dec 29, 2019

2-1 Arsenal.

Bad feeling

Paul_Scholes18 · Dec 29, 2019

We can probably afford to start with Mata, Young, Pereira, Lingard, Matic and Jones and still beat them.

charlenefan · Dec 29, 2019

It's little wonder so many get so irate at Ole when you feel a game at Arsenal is such a nailed on win

Seriously I do not get the confidence in beating them

fergiesarmy1 · Dec 29, 2019

charlenefan said:
It's little wonder so many get so irate at Ole when you feel a game at Arsenal is such a nailed on win

Seriously I do not get the confidence in beating them

Might be something to do with them winning one of their last 15 games but could be wrong.

TheReligion · Dec 29, 2019

Sadly I think we will stumble again here.

cyberman · Dec 29, 2019

charlenefan said:
It's little wonder so many get so irate at Ole when you feel a game at Arsenal is such a nailed on win

Seriously I do not get the confidence in beating them

Theyre one loss away from being in a relegation dog fight and have a worse home record than Villa?

charlenefan · Dec 29, 2019

fergiesarmy1 said:
Might be something to do with them winning one of their last 15 games but could be wrong.

cyberman said:
Theyre one loss away from being in a relegation dog fight and have a worse home record than Villa?

It's still Arsenal away and we all know they're not as bad as their league position suggest (it's a consequence of keeping a manager the players weren't playing for), they're not going to be in a relegation fight come April and under Arteta (today especially) they've looked good

I'd be a lot more confident if Emery or Ljungberg was in charge personally

fergiesarmy1 · Dec 29, 2019

charlenefan said:
It's still Arsenal away and we all know they're not as bad as their league position suggest (it's a consequence of keeping a manager the players weren't playing for), they're not going to be in a relegation fight come April and under Arteta (today especially) they've looked good

I'd be a lot more confident if Emery or Ljungberg was in charge personally

It’s no cert but I’m more confident of beating them then I was Burnley to be honest given our efforts against the so called lesser teams and then the “top” clubs.

TMDaines · Dec 29, 2019

Arsenal are so poor right now that us being good against the top sides and indifferent against the rest is going to not be in our favour here. I think we might pick up our January loss here.

ArjenIsM3 · Dec 29, 2019

charlenefan said:
It's still Arsenal away and we all know they're not as bad as their league position suggest (it's a consequence of keeping a manager the players weren't playing for), they're not going to be in a relegation fight come April and under Arteta (today especially) they've looked good

I'd be a lot more confident if Emery or Ljungberg was in charge personally

Agreed. Sadly they've got a promising manager in charge now and their performances have since improved to the level you'd expect this set of players to perform at. This will not be an easy game at all. I find it strange so many on here think it will be a piece of cake.

fergiesarmy1 · Dec 29, 2019

ArjenIsM3 said:
Agreed. Sadly they've got a promising manager in charge now and their performances have since improved to the level you'd expect this set of players to perform at. This will not be an easy game at all. I find it strange so many on here think it will be a piece of cake.

Bookies have us both similar odds to win the game so while some might be still on the festive drinks it’s also about being positive which this place surely could do with this season :lol:

theklr · Dec 29, 2019

Berbasbullet said:
Dunno why we’re all confident, they were good for a point at Old Trafford. We need to play a lot better than that fixture.

To be fair we have improved lots since that game

ArjenIsM3 · Dec 29, 2019

fergiesarmy1 said:
Bookies have us both similar odds to win the game so while some might be still on the festive drinks it’s also about being positive which this place surely could do with this season

I'm all for being positive and optimistic but not for being naïve. Sadly things on here are either black or white. There's no grey area.

MikeKing · Dec 29, 2019

Their defence is not good. They will need to sit very deep to stop us but their team hates defending. Our tactics and team should fit this game perfectly. We should be able to go at them for the early goal, hopefully get it then let them have the ball and hit them again on the counter. After that we should be able to get on the ball and pass the game to sleep while they are worried about a loss bigger than 0-2.

T00lsh3d · Dec 29, 2019

Ideally suited for us.

They’ll come onto us, trying to play the expansive style Arteta wants but doesn’t have the players for, we’ll sit back and ruthlessly do them on the counter.

0-2

meamth · Dec 30, 2019

What we did to City in the first half.

Same game here, unless Arteta isn't stubborn like Pep to sit back from the beginning.

MyOnlySolskjaer · Dec 30, 2019

Hope James starts over Greenwood for this one.

MyOnlySolskjaer · Dec 30, 2019

Berbasbullet said:
Dunno why we’re all confident, they were good for a point at Old Trafford. We need to play a lot better than that fixture.

But for a Tuanzebe mistake when playing at LB, that game should have been comfortable.

Gerald G · Dec 30, 2019

I don't know why everyone is so confident. This will be a very tough fixture.

De Gea
AWB - Lindelof - Maguire - Shaw
Fred - Matic - Pogba
James - Martial - Rashford

Keep it very tight and we should have chances to counter-attack. After their last defeat, the onus is on Arsenal to win this game so I expect them to come after us. They seem to tire in the second half but we should be very aware of their fast start

crossy1686 · Dec 30, 2019

Bad feeling about this one. Arsenal looked well drilled against Chelsea and did a lot of things right. It was only a couple of individual errors that cost them in the end.

Don't think our defence can cope with their two forwards. Pretty sure we'll drop points here...

crossy1686 · Dec 30, 2019

Gerald G said:
I don't know why everyone is so confident. This will be a very tough fixture.

De Gea
AWB - Lindelof - Maguire - Shaw
Fred - Matic - Pogba
James - Martial - Rashford

Keep it very tight and we should have chances to counter-attack. After their last defeat, the onus is on Arsenal to win this game so I expect them to come after us. They seem to tire in the second half but we should be very aware of their fast start

Pereira in for Matic, Williams in for Shaw and Greenwood in for James. Impossible to leave those out after the way they've been playing the last few games.

VidaRed · Dec 30, 2019

Prediction 5-5

GE · Dec 30, 2019

Arsenal are the biggest club in England according to Arteta. Should be an interesting game.

always_hoping · Dec 30, 2019

crossy1686 said:
Bad feeling about this one. Arsenal looked well drilled against Chelsea and did a lot of things right. It was only a couple of individual errors that cost them in the end.

Don't think our defence can cope with their two forwards. Pretty sure we'll drop points here...

Can certainly understand why you would have a bad feeling. Last three Premier league games v Arsenal

1-1 in Old Trafford at the end of September

0-2 defeat in March in the Emirates Stadium

2-2 in Old Trafford December 2018.

Yes Arsenal are mediocre and won't finish in the top 5 come the end of the season but United have lost or drew with worse teams than them already this season. 3 away wins all season ( v Norwich,City and Burnley yesterday) and just 1 away clean sheet in the league since February should make us United fans cautious about this game on Wednesday.

sglowrider · Dec 30, 2019

Several points:

1) I think Arteta is facing the same problem Ole faced when he first started. The team doesn't have the physical stamina to play the high pressing game that Arteta required. They looked puffed by HT. It was a matter of time before they would make mistakes.
2) Auba v AWB.

3) They will be up for this match until they run out of steam by the 60th minute. This is when I hope this war of attrition kicks in and we crush their souls with a few late match goals.
4) Pepe is the wildcard -- no idea why a 72million quid player doesn't start? A Gooner mate of mine said he is too one-legged.
5) Assume that Chambers is out considering that he was stretchered off. They will be even more vulnerable to speed now.
6) A slow attritional match --- we wear them down till they make their characteristic/obligatory defensive mistakes unless they decide to get the mistakes over & done with early. Then it will be a fun match for the neutrals.

MrBest · Dec 30, 2019

I have lost a bit of faith in Ole but Arsenal are terrible, easily a bottom half team. They will try and come at us and I am confident we will tear them apart on the counter. I think Ole will set up this way to, hit them hard and a couple of early goals in the first half would kill the game. I expect arsenal to come back out and trt to play but be too tired, we may get a few more. This is an optimistic prediction from me, but i have a feeling we will win 5 0 providing our players have our scoring boots on. Pogba in that double pivot could be absolutely essential for the counter and for that reason, i would start Andreas and bench Matic. Matic did great on Saturday but will be too slow against a team that will try to play football.

I have a feeling that Lindeloff will be rested with Tuanzabe coming in. I would also prefer Greenwood over James, as a sub after 70 mins he would run riot against a legless Arsenal team. I would also prefer Willaims but he did 90 against Burnley and I dont expect Ole to take the risk to play him again. He is far better at the overlap, offers width and gets in a good cross more consistently than Shaw.

De gea
AWB Tuanzabe Maguire Shaw
Pogba Fred
Andreas
Greenwood Martial Rashford

sdb4884 · Dec 30, 2019

That's a good side, it's all about pace against Arsenal, need to run our socks off against them. Having the likes of Mata and Matic in our side only holds us back.

iKnowNothing · Dec 30, 2019

This will be a tough game. I'm not as confident as some you here. I just hope we play well and get the 3 points. Hoping for a 1-2 win.

Strelok · Dec 30, 2019

sglowrider said:
4) Pepe is the wildcard -- no idea why a 72million quid player doesn't start? A Gooner mate of mine said he is too one-legged.

He's probably the biggest flop in Europe this year imo.

P-Nut · Dec 30, 2019

Can't see Ole playing Pogba in place of Pereira as he will want his pressing in that Am role.

Pogba will play in place of Matic which could well be a mistake.

DDG
AWB Lindelof Maguire Shaw
Fred Pogba
Pereira
James Martial Rashford

Only one I'm not confident on is James, as he got kicked to hell the other day and with Greenwood rested he could step in.

sglowrider · Dec 30, 2019

Strelok said:
He's probably the biggest flop in Europe this year imo.

João Félix says hello!

NewGlory · Dec 30, 2019

iKnowNothing said:
This will be a tough game. I'm not as confident as some you here. I just hope we play well and get the 3 points. Hoping for a 1-2 win.

Agree.

meamth said:
With Pogba rested, I expect us to smash these miserable cnuts.

DT to implode yet again.

AFTV : Arteta has to go chapter 1.

Pogba was either rested or is not ready for a big game. Ole's interview hinted that it may be the latter. I expect Pogba will not start and will be a substitute.

We really need to win this game for many reasons – top 4 chances, morale boost, establishing a run of wins, etc. but it will obviously be hard. Good news is that they are very unlikely to sit back and defend. Arteta needs to prove a point so they will attack.

I think a lot will depend on our defense. Aubameyang is a real threat and Arteta's first order of business seems to be the fixing of the attacking trio. Our defenders will need to make sure we lock them out well. Midfield will need to help as well. We cannot afford to give up the midfield. If we do these two things well, I think our attack can break down Arsenal, especially if they don't park a bus.

Best of luck to Ole and the team! This is an important one.

Denis79 · Dec 30, 2019

Looking forward to this game, hope we continue to do well.

flappyjay · Dec 30, 2019

GDaly95 said:
Why did I think we had them at home. Bollocks.

Apparently they looked much sharper against Bournemouth there the other day? Might be tough, this.

Away against a so called big team means they have to come at us. Leaving space to get destroyed on the counter.

sglowrider · Dec 30, 2019

flappyjay said:
Away against a so called big team means they have to come at us. Leaving space to get destroyed on the counter.

This is where we will miss a McT.

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