Mikel Arteta’s men arrive at St. James’ Park this weekend for the first time since they were beaten 2-0 on Tyneside in the second leg of last season’s Carabao Cup semi-final.<\/p>\n
The last few campaigns have brought some memorable games between the two sides, and Howe is hopeful his charges can overcome the challenge posed by the Gunners and record a second Premier League win of the season.<\/p>\n
Here are some of the main talking points from the United head coach’s pre-match media briefing on Friday morning:<\/p>\n
On the prospect of facing Arsenal…<\/p>\n
“It has always been a competitive game against Arsenal, and there has been an edge to those games as both teams want to win. <\/p>\n
“The more competitive we are, the better we play. We need to bring that to the game on Sunday.”<\/p>\n
On Nick Woltemade…<\/p>\n
“I see him as a (number) nine – he plays it differently to other strikers we\u2019ve had in the past. It is about utilising Nick’s strengths. <\/p>\n
“I was really impressed with him in the short time he had (against Bradford City) on Wednesday. He showed his creative flair.”<\/p>\n
On Anthony Gordon, who returns from a three-match league suspension on Sunday…<\/p>\n
“It is a big boost for us to have him back fully. He can really focus on the few games we have ahead of the next international break.<\/p>\n
“I thought he was excellent against Bradford. He is a player that rises to the occasion, and we are going to need everyone to do that on Sunday.”<\/p>\n
On team news and availability…<\/p>\n
“We have a couple of players to check today, (but) no major injuries from the game. <\/p>\n
“Jacob (Murphy) is doing okay – it is an issue we are managing. He is fit and available, but some days he has been sore, so we are just trying to manage his load.”<\/p>\n
On Jacob Ramsey’s expected return date…<\/p>\n
“His recovery is going well. He is on the grass working hard and building his fitness back up. I think it will be after the international break that we see him. Anything before that, then he will be ahead of schedule.”<\/p>\n
On Will Osula’s brace against the Bantams in midweek…<\/p>\n
“He did a lot of work, individual work,, last season, focused on all aspects of his game. He is here and he has done well.<\/p>\n
“He had an excellent performance on Wednesday – two brilliant goals, and it could have been more.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mikel Arteta’s men arrive at St. James’ Park this weekend for the first time since they were beaten…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-172473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}