Arsenal 1-3 Manchester United: 3 Reasons why United won | FA Cup Round 4
It was a night to remember for Manchester United fans, as the Red Devils tore apart an injury-plagued Arsenal at the Emirates to progress into the next round of the FA Cup.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's United have now won all of their eight games since Jose Mourinho's firing. The Norwegian is currently only the caretaker, and he is certainly taking care, as the Manchester side are playing arguably the best football they have played since the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson.
The Gunners dominated possession throughout the game, having 63 percent of the ball for the entirety of the game. They couldn't make all that possession count in front of goal though, as they failed to impress from attacking positions, heavily relying on their strikers, with no other player either willing or capable of shooting at goal.
They had 13 shots on goal, with five of them on target. Sergio Romero was made to work by Alexandre Lacazette and Aaron Ramsey in the second half, and the Argentine rose to the challenge and made some smart saves to help his side to the next round.
United were set up on the counter-attack by their manager tonight, with Romelu Lukaku featuring as an inverted winger from the right, and Sanchez set up similarly from the left.
Lingard started through the centre, and the front three caused all sorts of problems to Arsenal during the first half, scoring two goals in three minutes as Lukaku morphed into the best version of himself, similar to what we saw at the World Cup against Brazil in the summer.
Here are three reasons why United won:
#1 Arsenal's injury struggles
Not to take away anything from United's excellent performance, but part of the reason why United had as good a night as they did was Arsenal's struggles in keeping their players fit.
Most of it is down to just extremely bad luck, as was in the case with captain Laurent Koscielny, who got his face cut as Lukaku stepped on him after the Frenchman fell down post an aerial duel.
Before that unfortunate incident came Sokratis' moment of horror, as the Greek defender twisted his right ankle whilst landing from a jump. Arsenal now has four senior defenders injured, with Hector Bellerin and Rob Holding already having suffered season-ending injuries.
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