16 Conclusions From Arsenal-Manchester United

16 Conclusions From Arsenal-Manchester United

Arsenal suffer yet another humiliation against one of the top two teams in the country on their home turf...

* United were excellent but the truth - and dismal reality for their opponents - is that they did not have to do much to reach excellence or inflict humiliation. Against opponents who could not save and could not shoot, victory was easy. Peasy. Despite the size of their victory, United did not create an especially large number of chances and did not look especially secure at the back either. And yet they were in control throughout. There is plenty to be said, and won, with clinical ruthlessness. They had a game plan - one which they know works - and executed it to perfection.

* United have the blueprint to beat Arsenal and Arsenal still have no answers to a test they also failed in May. Crowd them out in midfield, play narrow in defence, and hit them on the counter-attack: Game over. United were at their most dangerous when Arsenal had possession, and Wayne Rooney's goal was Ronaldo's backwards.

* Goodness only knows what this Sunday's game looked like in 3-D. But in black and white it looked like an identical repeat of November 29 and May 5. If lessons are not learnt, re-sits are pointless. Literally.

* Manchester United have a tendency to reserve their ruthless best for encounters with Arsenal. They scored with their first two shots in May's European Cup semi-final at the Emirates, went 2-1 ahead at Old Trafford in August having only produced a single shot on target, and scored with two of the three shots on target they produced in the first half this Sunday. We could use those statistics to repeat an observation about Manuel Almunia and the number of saves he makes but you know it already.

* Also wondering what the third shot was (ie the one that Manchester United did not score with)? It was Denilson's inadvertent attempt at scoring an own goal from a fifth-minute corner that Samir Nasri hacked off the line. So given that United's first goal has to be recorded as an Almunia own-goal as Nani's cross would not have gone in without his diversion, it's a statistical fact that Arsenal produced more shots on target against themselves in the opening 45 minutes than United. At least in August, when Wayne Rooney and Abou Diaby were on the scoresheet, it was an even split over the 90 minutes.

* To state an obvious point that cannot be ignored nor disputed any longer: Arsenal are not at the same level as Chelsea and Manchester United. And that discrepancy is particularly apparent in their head-to-head encounters. In the past 12 months, the Gunners have faced their superiors on eight occasions and have not won once. Total score from those matches: 5-18. In the context of Chelsea and United's status as two of the three best teams in Europe, Arsenal's inferiority is no disgrace. But it is, by and large, impossible to win silverware these years without beating either Chelsea or United along the way and Arsenal will remain trophyless until they find a new way.

* Football commentators should never, ever talk about tennis mid-way through a game. Especially a good game of respected proportion.

* Much was made (and possibly will still be) of the positional change Sir Alex Ferguson instigated mid-way through the first half when he switched around Michael Carrick and Paul Scholes. But the real puzzle was what Sir Alex was thinking in the first place when he deployed Scholes to mark Fabregas. Had Andrei Arshavin - released in front of goal after Fabregas had waltzed away from Scholes - worn his shooting boots then it would have been a costly error.

* Nani's rebirth is the most unlikely comeback of the season. A goner two months ago, he was pivotal in the Gunners' dismantling this weekend. But the qualification to the praise he receives ought to be the realisation that Gael Clichy is a busted flush. There's an old saying that class is permanent, form is temporary but Clichy, whose performance on Sunday belongs in the nought out of ten category, has been out of form for two years. At what point does it become accepted that his previous good form was a blip and his class is second-rate? He's plummeted from being one of the best full-backs in the league to one of the worst and a liability that every team now seeks to expose.

* The running theme in all three goals Arsenal conceded was the culpability of Clichy, Almunia and the appalling Denilson. With neat symmetry, all three were at fault for the third. One of the many differences between the two sides was that, whereas Arsenal had three weak links, Manchester United had none. Every one of their players enhanced their reputation.

* In World Cup year, it's the best thing since sliced bread that Wayne Rooney is English.

* And while Manchester United had a centre-forward, Arsenal didn't. The game could have had a very different outcome if they did because Arshavin spurned four opportunities before half-time - but that statement is not an excuse or mitigation but an indictment of Arsene Wenger's refusal to seek a striker this month. Without Robin van Persie, the Gunners are no match for the big boys: their last victory against one of the league's two behemoths was a 2-1 win at Stamford Bridge in November 2008 when the Dutchman scored both their goals. They miss him and unless Wenger spends in the next 24 hours, they will continue to miss him.

* But one Englishman who will not have enjoyed Rooney's promotion to world-class status and his success as a lone frontman is Michael Owen. United's reversion to a system that switches from a 4-5-1 to a 4-3-3 depending on if they have possession or not has killed off any hope he had of going to the World Cup.

* The red half of Manchester has had a great week.

Pete Gill