Arsenal 1 - 3 Manchester United: Throttled

It was just that kind of day for Arshavin and the Gunners yesterday. Pic via Guardian.

Arsenal 1: Vermaelen 80
Manchester United 3: Almunia 33 (og), Rooney 37, Park 52

There's no other way to describe this one. For the second time against a top team at home this season, Arsenal was humiliated.

Seemed to me like nobody was on the same page for about 80 minutes. Maybe it has something to do with how many players are just returning to the line-up, whether it be from injuries or the Africa Cup. Maybe I shouldn't be making excuses for the players, because Arsene Wenger certainly is not.

For the second straight game, Gael Clichy was eaten alive by the opposition. On Wednesday, it was Ashley Young, but Aston Villa didn't have the finishers to capitalize. Yesterday, it was Nani. A few minutes after rolling around on the pitch like he'd been shot by a sniper (producing a yellow card to Alex Song), Nani ran around three Arsenal players with ease (I believe they were Clichy, Denilson, and Vermaelen) before chipping a pass across the goal line that was tipped into the net by Almunia before reaching Ji-Sung Park at the far post.

Hard to tell if it would have been a goal anyway had Almunia not scored the first goal in 3D sports television history into his own net. Park appeared to be wide open to tap it home had Almunia not gotten a hand on it, but Gallas was a step behind Park and perhaps could have closed the gap. It's kind of hard to outright blame any of the three United goals on Almunia, but you know I like to anyway. Nani's run and pass across the line were just a touch too brilliant for the Gunners to handle yesterday.

The other two United goals came on the counter-attack, something that is going to keep happening to Arsenal if they continue having to send Gallas and Vermaelen forward as their only tall players capable of winning the ball in the air on set pieces. Notice how that's a huge fucking hole in logic? If Arsenal can only score on corners if they send their central defenders all the way forward, they are going to get burned again and again and again on a quality side's counterattack. Rooney's goal came within a minute after an Arsenal corner. Park's second half goal came on a 4-on-1 break for United.

Arsenal played quality football for approximately five minutes yesterday. It came from about the 79 minute mark to the 84 minute mark, with the game already essentially out of reach. And, of course, going back to their lack of physical presence in the box, it was Vermaelen the goal scorer.

Now, we've got ourselves a must-win game at the Bridge on Sunday. Thankfully, we won there last year. Sadly, both goals in a 2-1 win were scored by Robin Van Persie.

Two more things I want to bring up that make me happy, after all of this negativity:

1. There was a great crowd at Nevada Smith's yesterday, and I have to give our fellow Gooners credit for outsinging the United fans the entire game. And then the United fans had the fucking nerve to chant "Can you hear the Arsenal sing?" despite being outclassed by superior chanters for the entire game. The "Hello! Hello! We are the Arsenal boys!" reply came almost instantly.
2. Amusing moment from the match commentary that we here at Hipster Gooner will be repeating quite a bit. The announcer was talking about Arsenal's style of passing, listing attributes of their strategy, before slipping seamlessly back into play-by-play. As such the list came across as: "precision, angles, Denilson."