Arsenal - Manchester United

I wish I could just pretend this game never happened. Awful awful game and so many things went wrong that I could spend days writing about it. I'll try to point out only some of the more interesting things that I saw. Unfortunately, I can't say I'm 100% surprised by what happened - I already mentioned last week that I was worried about Sanchez exploiting our right sided weakness and unfortunately he did.

On the brighter side, Martial still looks amazing and he's so dangerous every time he gets the ball.

1) Midfield too aggressive

This one is weird and I'm not sure if it is a player mistake or if they're following LVG's instructions. Circled in blue is Schweinsteiger - why is he pressing the ball and further forward than Martial (circled red)? In my opinion, Martial should be the one pressing the ball and Schweinsteiger should be in our half. You see that Rooney is still in the center circle so there's no one covering the spot area that Schweinsteiger left open.

Here's the next moment. Schweinsteiger, on the far left, is now completely out of position. I circled Rooney in blue because his positioning here is bad - he should be in the black circled area. Because of his bad positioning, the Arsenal player turns and beats him very easily.

Here's the next moment, after the Arsenal player beats Rooney. Option 1: if Schweinsteiger wasn't out of position, he would have been next to Carrick (circled in blue) in the other blue circle and he'd be able to mark the Arsenal player with the ball. Option 2: Rooney (circled in red) should have immediately realized that Schweinsteiger was out of position and should have dropped back into Schweinsteiger's normal position, somewhere around the red circled area. 

The result: Arsenal scored a goal from this. They cut through our midfield like it was nothing because Schweinsteiger got dragged out of position and Rooney didn't cover for him. Both experienced players who should have known better.

If you'll notice, I already pointed out something like this in the match against Southampton in the first point "bad positioning, mostly by Martial."

2) Blind too deep

This is a big flaw with Blind as a defender and I already pointed this out even last season when he was playing left back. He tends to be the furthest defender back - I think he prefers it because he doesn't have the pace to play too tight to the attackers and needs the extra yard. However, without pace, he can't play as the furthest defender back because he doesn't have the pace to cover the runners - he's basically trying to play sweeper and sweepers need to be fast.

Here, Blind should have just stepped up and played Theo Walcott offside. Easy, simple defense. He can see that Smalling is already forward and all he needed to do was take one step forward and the attack would have been stopped.

The result: Arsenal scores their second goal.

3) Where in the world is Mata?

Ok, first, there's another mistake here in that one of Carrick or Schweinsteiger should be near the red circled area but instead both of them are too far to our left.

Now, the main mistake: I circled our defensive line in blue. Ashley Young had went forward to attack (which he has to do as a fullback, that's normal). That meant that Blind had to shift to the left more in to the left back position, Smalling into the left center back position and Darmian had to shift to the right center back position. That's all normal, Darmian has to stay close to Smalling and help him with the dribbler.

The problem is that Mata needs to be covering Sanchez who is completely unmarked. That's Mata's job on the right and he's nowhere near him. 

The result: Arsenal's third goal.

This also made Darmian look bad because Sanchez ended up dribbling by him but the thing is, you can't expect even the best defender in the world to be able to defend a player like Sanchez when he has this kind of space. Sanchez is just too good to be given this sort of space. Darmian didn't really make a mistake here. He had to be close to Smalling so his positioning was fine and letting Sanchez dribble past him when Sanchez had 10+ yards of space is not a mistake - it's a given. 

All three goals are simple mistakes that I've pointed out in past games and I'm just some guy on the internet watching one Manchester United game per week. These things should have been addressed in training before we let it culminate into a defeat like this.

Sidenote:

I have two more notations of Mata losing his man or not tracking back but I won't bother uploading them. If you want to check out them, look at the replay of the game at these moments (approximately): 1) 41 minutes 2) 85 mnutes

4) Memphis just watches Cazorla shoot

It's hard to tell from a picture only but basically, Memphis here just stands there and lets Cazorla shoot on goal. Memphis was close enough to either get a foot in or at least put some pressure on him but he just stood there and watched.

I trust De Gea to stop a 30 yard volley any day but it's just basic mentally and training to not let the opposition get any shot on goal. Very poor from Memphis.

5) Double press mistake

Look at this - where are Rooney and Carrick both marking one player when there's other players who are completely free and unmarked? Rooney should be further back marking the unmarked Arsenal player. 

Double marking an opponent isn't necessary when they're in their own half and facing away from goal. This is terrible discipline and awareness.

6) A different defensive mistake by Mata

So far, I've mostly mentioned how Mata isn't really helping Darmian out, although I have pointed out some defensive awkwardness in the past. Here's another example of his lack of defensive instinct.

Below, he should be in the blue circled area so he can block/intercept the possible pass. It's only a few yards further back and if he was there, he would have prevented two possible options.

This is something that should come naturally to players and when they do it right, they'll never get praise for it because it's just what they should do. 

Final thoughts

It might seem like a Mata focused write up but honestly most of our team was just bad. I had about four times the number of notes written down and I just pointed out the most glaring mistakes, otherwise I would be spending days writing this. I like Mata as a player but LVG can't keep playing him at right midfield and pretending he can provide adequate defensive cover. Actually, I think LVG fixed this issue somewhat in the second half by having Fellaini play right center mid - Fellaini was able to cover for Mata and we ended up playing better.

Also, I'm still not seeing anything from Rooney on the pitch. I didn't see leadership, I didn't see hard work, I didn't see any good play. I'm scared every time the ball gets to him because at best, he'll just pass it backwards but more likely, he'll just lose the ball. I'm getting impatient and tired of seeing our captain not contributing anything visible to our team on the pitch.

International break next week, maybe the first time I don't mind it. I can definitely use some time to cool off and just forget about this game.

Thanks for reading!