Alex Keble looks at how Arsenal edged past Manchester United 1-0 at Old Trafford to go back on top of the table.
The title race will go down to the final day. Whatever happens from here, Arsenal supporters will be proud of their team’s resilience 12 months on from a challenge that fell apart in the spring.
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And resilience is the right word for how Arsenal held out on Sunday in those final minutes when the heavens had opened, thunder rolled around Old Trafford, and it felt like a portentous sign of things to come.
The Gunners stood tall; pushed through the ominous feeling that something strange was about to happen.
Instead it was Man Utd for whom the driving rain was symbolic, as a waterfall tumbled through the leaking roof to highlight the structural work, literal and figurative, that new part-owners INEOS have to do at Old Trafford.
But this was a much-improved performance from United, whose impressive off-the-ball work was a timely boost for Erik ten Hag after the ignominy of the 4-0 defeat at Crystal Palace.
Here are the key takeaways from Arsenal’s 1-0 win.
Partey-Tomiyasu struggle for rhythm in midfield
The visitors never quite got out of second gear and although this appeared to be a deliberate tactical strategy from Mikel Arteta later in the match, (as we will come to) for at least the first hour, Arsenal just didn’t quite show up.
Thomas Partey (below) and Takehiro Tomiyasu, inverting from left-back, were the two anchors in midfield and neither player is particularly graceful or agile when under pressure.
That meant Arsenal’s centre-backs rarely had the opportunity to pass into midfield, where Partey and Tomiyasu either failed to find space to receive the pass or, when they got it, struggled to release intelligently through the lines.
Arteta told Sky Sports that at times his team “played too safe” and in “areas that wasn’t progressing our play and creating the threat that we wanted”, suggesting he wanted his players to be braver in passing through the lines.
Their failure to do so meant United’s shape was never truly broken, although for this we should credit Ten Hag for adapting his approach.
Ten Hag adopts a defensive formation to close midfield gaps
After receiving regular criticism for allowing his forwards to press and his centre-backs to drop deep - opening up the midfield - Ten Hag instructed his players to drop off, thus ensuring the three lines of his formation were neatly compressed.
In this this typical example, Arsenal’s centre-backs were left completely alone to carry the ball out from their own penalty area. The visitors therefore couldn’t find the spaces through midfield.
From this base they restricted Arsenal to just 11 shots on goal, which was United’s ninth-lowest figure of the season and considerably below their average of 17.3.
On another day it could have been enough to snatch a point, not only because Alejandro Garnacho impressed in bursts on the left, but because the winning goal was an unforced error.
Casemiro error pounced on by Havertz
The key moment of the match was not in keeping with Man Utd’s solid defensive performance overall, although Casemiro’s slowness – and the quiet, unassuming way the ball fell to Kai Havertz in the final third – was representative of the match as a whole.
Casemiro’s error cannot be explained away, but it is worth noting that a centre-back would not have made the same mistake; first he offered himself for a short pass that was not on as Andre Onana went long, which meant he was unable to get forward quick enough to play Havertz offside.
It was a goal that highlighted the injury crisis that has made Ten Hag’s job so difficult in these final weeks of the season.
The goal still required an excellent piece of skill from Havertz, who provided the match’s decisive moment of quality to further cement his place as Arsenal’s No 9. Only Cole Palmer has had more goal contributions in 2024 than Havertz's 14 (8 goals, 6 assists).
Saliba leads Arsenal into controlled, but subdued, second half
As the second half wore on, it looked as though Arsenal were happy holding Man Utd at arms’ length, accepting the low tempo and low possession share (46 per cent by full-time) to neutralise United’s threat in the transition.
The last thing Arteta will have wanted was to be pulled into an end-to-end match, giving Garnacho and Rasmus Hojlund the chance to stretch their legs, and therefore he decided against bringing on Jorginho – who would surely have helped them build through the lines – until the final minutes.
In fact, his only notable change was to move to a defensive 5-4-1 shape for the final four minutes of stoppage time.
Clearly he trusted his players even when camped in their own half - which is easy to do when you have William Saliba leading the way.
Saliba topped the charts for touches (99), tackles (four), and clearances (six), making several important interventions in a second half that was typical of his season.
It helped Arsenal to their seventh clean sheet in their last eight Premier League away matches and 11th away from home this season, a tally only the Chelsea side of 2008/09 have beaten, with 12.
If they do win the title next Sunday, that will be why.
But even if they don’t, it has been a superb season and a points tally – 86 and counting – better than in any year since they were last champions in 2003/04.
As for Man Utd, this was a step in the right direction, albeit a very small one.
