Manchester United 0-2 Arsenal: 5 Talking Points & Tactical Analysis

#4 Sudden lack of composure in United’s final third

Lukaku and Rashford had below-par games

One of the trademarks of United’s recent resurgence has been their innate calmness in the opposition’s box.

Their players have been able to sort out any kind of insecurities when in front of the goal and hence have notched goals fearlessly at an excellent rate since late December.

However, on Sunday, they seemed too hurried at times and hence tended to mess up whatever chances they came up in the first half.

Ole’s team managed to break down Arsenal on the counter-attack on certain occasions through their sumptuous gameplay but they seemed to be caught in two minds whilst taking an attempt at goal.

Within the first twenty minutes, they hit the crossbar and the post once each and hence were unlucky on that aspect for having missed their chances by mere inches.

In retrospect, Arsenal grabbed their opportunities quite well and hence ended up with two goals to nil, which fairly should not have been the case and somewhat arguably doesn’t give an accurate assessment of how the events progressed throughout the first forty-five minutes.

Particularly, there was one such move just at the brink of halftime when Pogba along with Luke Shaw broke down an Arsenal attack before swiftly transitioning it into an offensive move through an excellent cross-field pass by the Frenchman to Romelu Lukaku.

However, here too, Marcus Rashford seemed to have lost his balance whilst attempting to shoot Diogo Dalot’s low cross. Accordingly, United missed one opportunity too many to cut the deficit.