Leandro Trossard, Viktor Gyokeres, and Mikel Arteta (Photo by Shaun Botterill, Stu Forster/Getty Images)
Arsenal’s win at Old Trafford was a fantastic result – that’s all that matters
Did Arsenal play particularly well at Old Trafford? No. Did they get a fantastic result? Absolutely. And to be honest that’s all that matters when it comes to the opening weekend of the season.
With the start Arsenal have been handed to this campaign it was absolutely essential they got some points on the board early and they’ve done that at a stadium which has not been a happy hunting ground for them in the past.
They went to United and won and they spoiled the party. It was a fantastic result.
Of course they will have to play far better than that in the coming weeks, but I think they will. They just had an off day at Old Trafford against a team that was clearly up for it.
United played pretty well and, in the first half especially, they caused Arsenal some problems. They made them look unusually uncomfortable, especially at the back.
But they still couldn’t find a way through. Arsenal dug in and they found a way to win ugly and if they are going to achieve what they want to achieve this season they will have to do that more than once.
So personally I think it’s a good sign and I think some of the reaction to the performance has been slightly over the top. I get the sense that a lot of people wanted to see Arsenal lose this game. They wanted to be able to start pointing the finger at Mikel Arteta and putting pressure on him and the team straight away.
And to me it looks like they have been annoyed that they haven’t been able to do that. Arsenal’s win stopped them writing the headlines they really wanted to write, so they have tried to have a dig anyway.
But Arteta won’t care about that and nor will the players. Look at the way they celebrated at the full-time whistle. They knew that was a big result, even at this very early stage of the season.
Arteta accepted afterwards…
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