3 Crucial factors which contributed towards Arsenal's 2-0 victory over United

#2 United lacked width through the left flank and struggled to make adjustments

Luke Shaw

United started with Paul Pogba in the left wing, Marcus Rashford as the center-forward and Romelu Lukaku as the right-winger in a 4-3-3 formation. Fred and Diego Dalot started as the two central midfielders, and Nemanja Matic made a comeback to the side from an injury.

However, it did not seem to work for United, as they were lacking width through the left flank. Pogba is far more comfortable while playing in a central position, and had difficulties in adjusting with his new responsibility.

Therefore, Solskjaer made some adjustments well into the first half by putting Rashford in the left wing, shifting Lukaku to the centre-forward’s role, and pushing Dalot ahead to the right wing. Luke Shaw kept making some overlapping runs through the left flank to provide the much-needed width.

Pogba was shifted to the central midfield and looked far more comfortable there. He also started to exert his influence on the game gradually and played some good balls to the forwards. Lukaku came very close to scoring and hit the crossbar once.

On another occasion, Arsenal’s goalie Bernd Leno made a brilliant save off him from a close range. United looked a much better team in the last 20 minutes of the first half after having made the necessary changes in their formation. Still, their efforts were not enough to find the elusive equalizer.