Gary Neville blasts one Arsenal star after win over Manchester United

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Gary Neville believes Alexandre Lacazette was criminally clever when he went down under Fred’s challenge to win a penalty for Arsenal in their Premier League win over Manchester United. Arsenal strikers Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang were the two deciding factors in the Gunners’ win over Manchester United on Sunday afternoon.

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Arsenal won 2-0 as goals from Granit Xhaka and Aubameyang gave Ole Gunnar Solskjaer his first taste of defeat in the league. Unai Emery’s side started the brighter of the two and took the lead in bizarre circumstances as Xhaka’s long-range effort wrong-footed David de Gea, who was left on his knees as the ball bounced past his right.

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The Spain international insinuated that the shot swerved wildly in the air, but it was, in fact, meat and drink for the league’s top shot-stopper. United soon woke up to end the first-half strongly, but their belief was deflated in the 69th minute when referee Jonathan Moss controversially awarded a penalty after Lacazette was ostensibly fouled in the area by Fred.

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Replays showed there was minimal contact on the Frenchman, but the decision stood and Aubameyang untidily bobbled home his spot-kick, with De Gea diving the other way.

Speaking after the game, Neville picked out Arsenal’s front two as the main men in a vital win for Arsenal which gives them a two-point lead in fourth on United.

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“Lacazette won the penalty – I personally didn’t think it was a penalty, but there’s no doubt Lacazette was clever,” the former United captain said on his self-titled podcast. “He just stepped in front of Fred with a little burst of speed, and then he went over as he felt the contact.

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“They won the game. Lacazette and Aubameyang being on the pitch won the game for Arsenal. You point towards that first half an hour, Lacazette and Aubameyang got the better of [Chris] Smalling and [Victor] Lindelof.

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“I point back to my experience under Sir Alex Ferguson. He used to say ‘if your centre—halves haven’t got hold of the opposition centre-forwards, you’ve always got a real problem in a game’. It was a case of which goalkeeper played best and which strikers took their chances, and Arsenal won that.”

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Neville also praised Emery for his tactical switches in the second 45, which paid off.

“In the second half, Unai Emery maintained the positivity while stepping back – and that sounds a little bit contradictory,” Neville explained.

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“They were going punch for punch the first 10 minutes of the second half and you thought ‘it’s like basketball, this’. It was 3v3 at one end with [Mesut] Ozil, Lacazette and Aubameyang.

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“There was a point when Emery said ‘right, we’re going to concede here’ and he stepped those three back a touch towards the midfield. They became a bit more compact, and then they started to counter attack. It was a subtle switch but allowed the attacking players to do the damage – and they did do the damage.”

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