GW 15: Manchester United vs. Arsenal

This most interesting game that we have in store for us during the first round of midweek fixtures, is undoubtedly Manchester United against Arsenal. With one of these teams having a very bad season and the other massively improving on last year’s performance, we could definitely see a different result as we have in previous seasons. Manchester United won both games against Arsenal last season with an aggregate score of 5-2 but you expect they’ll find it more challenging this season as they are currently 3 places behind the North London side. The positive for Manchester United is that they’re at home where they are now unbeaten in 35 of their last 38 Premier League matches. This shows that Manchester United have clearly built up a bit of a fortress at Old Trafford under Jose Mourinho and that it will be very challenging for Arsenal to beat them on their own ground.

United are currently enduring an awful season by their high standards, sitting in 7th place, 16 points off league leader Manchester City and 8 points behind this Arsenal team. It’s very surprising that in less than a year United have transformed from a team firmly based on defensive solidity, to a team who have conceded 23 after just 14 matches. This tally is only 5 better than what they achieved in the whole of last season showing their dramatic decline on the defensive end of the spectrum. United have now gone back to poor form after a decent spell a few weeks ago, and are without a win in their last 3. In this period they have played struggling sides Southampton and Crystal Palace who are 14th and 18th at the moment. In their last game, a 2-2 draw against Southampton, they played quite poorly and allowed Southampton to take 16 shots compared to their 11, and 6 on target to their 5. This shows that they were allowing Southampton to get into promising areas and they made United pay with 2 very good goals. A big problem for Jose and United, was the fact that Southampton scored 2 goals very early on in the match which shows that they weren’t organized or fully coordinated coming into the game. This is a similar problem to what Arsenal have been experiencing at the beginning of this season.

One big surprise from the Southampton game was the emission of Anthony Martial by Jose Mourinho. The player who before this last game, had scored 6 in his last 6, was brought on as a substitute with only 13 minutes left in the match and he wasn’t able to produce anything of note. You feel that in that game United could have really used his clinical shooting ability as he has scored all 6 of his goals from only 16 shots. Marcus Rashford will be another important attacking player as he played quite well in his last match and was one of the only real positives for United getting 2 assists. In the game he made 4 key passes, which is his best tally of the season, and also took 1 shot. Although his performance wasn’t brilliant he has looked dangerous over the last few matches and now has 5 goal contributions in only 6 starts. You would expect that in this game his pace will definitely be used to get in behind Sead Kolasinac on the right wing.

Arsenal are in very good form at the moment after their North London derby win last week, and they are now unbeaten in their last 12 Premier League games. This means that their last loss was all the way back during gameweek 2 against Chelsea. Their last match was an incredible 4-2 win of their biggest rivals Tottenham. In the game they originally went up through a penalty but shortly afterwards they feel behind 2-1, only for an incredible second half resurgence where they scored 3 more goals to win the game. Although they played well, the match highlights their bad first half performances again , as they still haven’t gone into half time with a lead. Overall though, Arsenal did play very well in the match and came out on top in terms of expected goals, 2.20 to 1.09, as well as having double Tottenham’s shots and more shots on target. Yet again, it was a very good attacking performance form the Gunners as they now rank 2nd for Premier League goals behind only the rampant Manchester City.

Aubameyang was terrific in the match grabbing 2 goals from his 4 shots on the day. He now has 10 goals this season which is the most in the Premier League. A very impressive fact about Aubameyang, is that he has now scored from every one of his last 10 shots on target showing that he must generate a good deal of power on his shots to beat the keeper so consistently. The Gabonese goal machine is definitely a player Manchester United need to watch out for in this match. Another very important Arsenal player is defensive midfielder Lucas Torreira. Against Tottenham he scored his first goal of the season doubling the Gunners’ lead before the end of the match. He has really started playing well under Unai Emery and is slowly becoming the most crucial piece in Arsenal’s squad. He is currently making 52  passes a match (which is very impressive considering many of the games that he has played he has not played the full 90 minutes) with a 89% pass accuracy. He is also making 3.4 tackles and interceptions a match as well as 1 clearance per game. In this game his defensive contribution will be vital in stopping a United side who have a number of strong attacking players at their disposal.

Manchester United are struggling from a large number of injury problems at the moment which will definitely effect Jose Mourinho’s match plan and starting lineup. Smalling, Lindelof, Bailly, Young, Shaw, Darmian, Sanchez and Lukaku all have injury problems at the moment and could potentially sit out for the match. Out of these 8 players, Lindelof, Young and Sanchez are all guaranteed to miss out as their injuries are more serious. Sanchez can be replaced but the 2 defenders might not have backups if Smalling, Shaw and Darmian are also missing the match. This could force United into playing one of either Matic, Mctominay or maybe even both as central defenders. This is a big problem for United as it clearly didn’t work when they had to do the same last time out against Southampton. Arsenal have considerably less injury problems with Monreal, Koscielny, Xhaka and Welbeck all potentially missing for the match. The only player out of these 4 who will definitely miss the match is Granit Xhaka as he currently is suspended for getting too many yellow cards. The rest of these problems should be pretty easy for Arsenal to solve.

With all of Manchester United’s defensive injuries you would think they might have a very hard time defending against an Arsenal side who have scored 2 or more in 11 of their last 13 matches. United have conceded 14 in their last 8 matches showing their clear defensive instability and with Arsenal in good attacking form, scoring 4 in the last match, you would think that they would be able to break down this United defence. The one thing that United have going for them is their strong home record as they’ve only lost 1 of their last 6 games against Arsenal when at Old Trafford which might just be enough for them to get a result in the match. I think with Arsenal in the better form but with United having a solid home record and with both teams being defensively unstable, the match will come out as a 2-2 draw.