Almunia's own goal
Nani is congratulated by the team after the first goal
Wayne Rooney after scoring second goal of the match
Park scored third goal and sealed the game for United
Nani and Wayne Rooney showed great attacking display and destroyed the gunners
Andrey Arshavin tackled by Wes Brown
Song Billong closing Jonathan EvansThe pace and movement in the 1st half was exceptional from United Players and the gunners just could keep up. The crisp passing, and especially the early one, had them stretching the whole time.
The 5 man midfield strategy worked again for the red devils and good defensive work was shown by Carrick, Scholes and Fletcher in the midfield. Nani and Park were good at wings and now Sir Alex must consider that Nani can be a very strong weapon if used properly. In short, Nani has been a revelation the last couple of games and it helped United so much!
Rooney is on a different world right now. He is in form of his career. He is playing at such a high level, you wonder just how long this streak will last. His work rate, his anticipation and most importantly, his finishing was as good as one can expect. His 100th goal in the Premier League came at the perfect time. Now Sir Alex Ferguson will be happy with one striker strategy.
Park scored third time against Arsenal and showed a much disciplined role and never tried to do something extraordinary.
Man Utd came up again with second choice centre backs. Sir Alex was forced to sideline United’s first choice centre backs Rio Ferdinand (suspended) and Nemanja Vidic (injured), but the combination of Evans and Brown looked sufficient for Arsenal. Evra and Rafael also ensured to cancel out all threats from Clichy and Sagna from wings.
For Arsenal, Fabregas looked in decent touch as usual. Rosicky and Nasri looked under prepared for this crunch tie. Rest was done by overconfident Arshavin who missed at least four or five chances. Denilson was low on confidence and he almost scored an own goal in the first half. Song came back to team from AFCON and did good tackles to stop any attack from central midfield.
Arsenal came into the game with their first choice defense line up. Thomas Vermaelen’s injury in the mid week tie against Aston Villa didn’t proved to be a major one and he came up for the game.
Arsene Wenger’s planning was to attack with Arshavin didn’t proved to be result oriented for Arsenal. He lacked confidence to play with Bendtner for full 90 minutes. Although the weakest part of United’s composition was central defense, but Wenger played with one striker (in fact an attacking midfielder in Strikers position).
Fabregas’ crosses and moves were sometimes more demanding from Walcott and Rosicky. Almunia gain failed to handle the pressure of big game and scored an own goal, failing to clear Nani’s cross. In the second half he gave a direct ball to Nani to give him another easy chance to score more. Arsenal will have to rethink on the capability of Almunia.
In the next week Man Utd has an easy game against
Starting Line Up:
Arsenal
Almunia
Sagna – Gallas – Vermaelen - Clichy
Song - Denilson
Nasri – Fabregas - Rosicky
Arshavin
Van Der Sar
Rafael – Brown – Evans – Evra
Nani – Fletcher- Scholes – Carrick – Park
Rooney
Final Score:
Arsenal 1
(Vermaelen)
(Almunia (own goal), Rooney, Park)
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