Manchester United suffered their first loss in the Premier League under interim manager Ole Gunnar Solksjaer at the Emirates Stadium.
In all honesty, Arsenal were the underdogs in that game, with United fans confident of a definitive 3-nil thumping that would cement their dominance over their bitter rivals.
Only this time, the Emirates was no one’s dance floor.
Nevertheless, here are three things that United fans learned from the game:
Romelu Lukaku missed an amazing chance to score a hat-trick
Romelu Lukaku was on a brilliant goal-scoring form coming into the game and was expected to continue it against Arsenal. He had some brilliant chances yesterday and could have scored a hattrick but poor finishing and some bad luck prevented him from doing so.
The hit the post from inside the 6-yard box from a brilliant whipped cross by Luke Shaw. He was denied another opportunity when he took the ball past the goalkeeper just like he did in Paris against Gigi Buffon but Leno was more than equal to it and stopped it from going in.
He was again presented with a gilt-edged opportunity when he was left one-on-one with the goalkeeper from a brilliant pass by Marcus Rashford which he also failed to convert. Romelu Lukaku could have won the game single-handedly but was unable to do so.
The United Players Look Visibly Tired
Manchester United made history with their victory over Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday and had to work really hard for the victory. Fred and Mctominay covered the most distance in that game while Romelu Lukaku and Marcus Rashford were also running up and down the field for Manchester United.
Most of the players that played 90 minutes against PSG started again against Arsenal. “We started slow, maybe a backlash from Wednesday night,” said Ole in his Post Match interview. Marcus Rashford especially looked out of his depth in yesterday’s game.
The Penalty Should Never Have Been Awarded, But Such is Life
Manchester United was handed a controversial penalty in midweek against Paris which won them the game and then conceded a controversial one against Arsenal in yesterday’s game. That’s football, isn’t it?
But it looked like a wrong decision by Jonathan Moss as the contact looked soft and Alexandre Lacazette made the most out of it. The penalty also came against the run of play for Arsenal. Manchester United was creating opportunities and looked destined to score. But the penalty changed the momentum against them and killed the game. The decision cost United a point, or maybe 3.