{"id":264550,"date":"2026-01-26T10:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T10:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/264550\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T10:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T10:16:07","slug":"manchester-united-see-arsenals-rugby-and-raise-them-some-football-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/264550\/","title":{"rendered":"Manchester United see Arsenal\u2019s rugby and raise them some football \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arsenal<\/a> against Manchester United<\/a> was one of the greatest Premier League<\/a> games of all time. Not so much because of the football that was played, but because of the story that was told<\/a>. It doesn\u2019t happen very often that Manchester United find themselves cast as the Ewoks against the imperial storm fleet, but here we are. United\u2019s victory was a victory for improvisation over scripting, for football against rugbification, for human ingenuity against the Machine. <\/p>\n

The match of the 2025-26 Premier League<\/a> season so far may yet turn out to be the pivotal moment of the title race. Arsenal have emerged from a dreamy Christmas where everything went their way, into a bleak and harsh late winter, with a shrunken lead of four points and 15 nerve-shredding tests between them and their first title in 22 years. <\/p>\n

This Arsenal title challenge is not some joyous event that has taken everyone by surprise, like the first youthful run of the Arteta<\/a> team in 22-23. Six years and \u20ac1.2 billion have gone into the design and precision-engineering of this side: figures more in keeping with a giant new sea bridge or mountain tunnel than a football team.<\/p>\n

At the end of this process they have what is clearly the best squad and all the rivals look flawed and inconsistent. It adds up to a different kind of pressure \u2013 not hope, but expectation. The pressure seemed especially acute in the context of wins for Manchester City and Aston Villa, who spent the last few weeks throwing points away, and yet had both closed to within four points of Arsenal by the time of kick off. <\/p>\n

What the anxious home crowd wanted was for their team to show all of its power, to take control of the title race by beating a United team whose coach was sacked just a couple of weeks ago. But once again, faced with one of their rivals, Arsenal fluffed their lines. <\/p>\n

Not much had happened by the time Lisandro Martinez put Arsenal in front on 27 minutes. Some pressing and chasing, some set pieces, lots of patient passing around at the back. When Arsenal took the lead they adjusted by becoming more patient. Sometimes you forget to factor in the risks you take to avoid taking risks. <\/p>\n

United\u2019s equaliser will go down as a mistake by Martin Zubimendi. Less obvious was how Zubimendi was played into trouble by Declan Rice, who passed the ball back to him then burst forward into space he saw opening up in United\u2019s half. <\/p>\n

The problem was: Rice\u2019s pass and his run didn\u2019t match. Passes transmit information. If Rice wanted to send the message that he\u2019s about to run forward so Zubimendi should be ready to play forward, he needed to pass the ball ahead of Zubimendi, compelling that general forward movement. Instead, he played it directly to Zubimendi\u2019s feet, forcing him to stand and wait for the ball to arrive. The message on this pass was that Arsenal were going to keep circulating the ball at the back. Zubimendi, naturally, would have expected Rice to stick around and be part of that.<\/p>\n

But Rice\u2019s run had now taken him out of the game. Zubimendi passed inside to his only real option, William Saliba. With Rice unavailable, Saliba had no option but to give it straight back to Zubimendi. By now United have recognised that Arsenal are all out of options and their forward pressers have locked on. Zubimendi can still get Arsenal out of trouble if he executes a difficult cross-field ball to Gabriel, but he miskicks. Bryan Mbeumo is left with an easy task to sidestep David Raya and score. <\/p>\n

What do Arsenal have in response? The crowd roars them on. Within two minutes they win a free kick when Diogo Dalot fouls Leandro Trossard. Rice takes 75 seconds to take the free-kick, which floats straight into Senne Lammens\u2019s hands. The crowd is quiet again. We see this happen again and again at Arsenal\u2019s complex, rugby-style set pieces. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard not to think back to these 75 seconds later in the game, when Gabriel is reacting angrily to Mbeumo taking too long to leave the field. God forbid somebody should waste Arsenal\u2019s precious time!<\/p>\n

United\u2019s lead goal, when it arrives, is a moment of pure magic. Just as we were recovering from that very 2025-26 first half, with its goals coming via OG and error-in-build-up, along comes a goal that remixes elements of two of the most famous goals in Premier League history. <\/p>\n

Patrick Dorgu and Bruno Fernandes play a double one-two reminiscent of the famous Jack Wilshere-Olivier Giroud goal, before Dorgu unleashes a Tony Yeboah cannonball shot that rattles in off the crossbar and bounces around crazily in the net. It\u2019s quite possibly the finest goal of the Arteta era. <\/p>\n

The contrast between this moment of creative improvised inspiration and Arsenal\u2019s over-regulated procedural football does not need to be spelt out to anybody in the stadium. How will Arteta respond? <\/p>\n

With more rugby! A quadruple substitution! The bomb squad! Heeeeave!<\/p>\n

The four new players are Ben White (a defender), Mikel Merino (good at headers), Viktor Gyokeres (cost so much money that it\u2019s embarrassing if he doesn\u2019t feature) and Eberechi Eze, whose hat-trick against Spurs was arguably the emotional high-point of Arsenal\u2019s campaign so far. <\/p>\n

Eze\u2019s season went off the rails two weeks later at Aston Villa, when he let Matty Cash get away from him at the far post for Villa\u2019s first goal in a 2-1 Arsenal defeat. Arteta subbed him off at half-time. The message was clear. Eze sat on the bench for four games over Christmas and has not started a league game in 2026. Arsenal players aren\u2019t stupid. They know if they make a mistake they\u2019re out. Of course they systematically avoid taking risks. <\/p>\n

Quadruple subs are common in rugby but very rare in football. Arteta appears to be telling his players that he is so disgusted by their performance in the first hour that only radical change will do.<\/p>\n

But there is no radical change. Arsenal continue to take no risks and make no chances. They are clinging to the hope that salvation will come via a corner. Eventually, it does. <\/p>\n

What happens at the near post looks more like a rugby lineout, as ten players leap together straining to get contact. Harry Maguire heads it accidentally towards his own goal and it bounces back to Merino who scrambles it in off Kobbie Mainoo.<\/p>\n

But United see Arsenal\u2019s rugby and raise them some football. Again Bruno Fernandes is at the heart of it, combining with Mainoo to set Cunha free behind Arsenal\u2019s midfield. In the context of everything we\u2019ve seen, it feels natural that his shot should find the corner from 30 yards. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Yes, but could Matheus Cunha operate a camera on a rainy afternoon in Semple Stadium?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Seven minutes of injury time produces only one more shot, when Bruno tries to score from the centre circle. At the final whistle there are boos. Why are the Arsenal fans booing? There was no obvious refereeing injustice or other outrage. You have to conclude that they\u2019re booing the style, they\u2019re booing their team for not taking risks. But Arteta\u2019s whole method is based around minimising risk. He will not change. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0After 13 years of failed appointments, Manchester United need to change their thinkingOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Afterwards, Michael Carrick talks about connections and partnerships. Arteta talks about the need for anyone who wants to win to pass through moments of suffering. Arsenal fans had better grit their teeth. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arsenal against Manchester United was one of the greatest Premier League games of all time. Not so much…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15133,42,7520,917,47000,15687,43,1102,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-264550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-arsenal","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-ken-early","11":"tag-manchester-united","12":"tag-michael-carrick","13":"tag-mikel-arteta","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-premier-league","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}