Match report – By the numbers – Player ratings – Video

Just after they went ahead through the Kieran Gibbs own goal, Martin Tyler said on Sky something to the effect that “United lead without having had a shot on target”, and I thought, ‘Of course they do’, because it’s just the kind of ludicrousness we involve ourselves in these days.

If you were to ask a fan of any club ‘Who is the team that had lots of chances to score but fell behind without the opposition even having an effort on target?’ and they would answer: Arsenal. You could probably go to the deepest parts of the South American rainforest and ask a tribe who wave sticks at clouds to make them go away and they’d know the answer too. It is just so very Arsenal.

I may have mentioned this before in recent weeks but when the ball skidded of Gibbs shin and into the net it wasn’t accompanied by a sinking feeling, the oh-no, the stomach churning despair that conceding should bring. Instead it just felt like part of a script that we all knew was coming because, basically, we were the ones writing it.

On a very basic level we had a decent first half with lots of the ball and we had created dangerous moments. And why wouldn’t we against the worst United defence I can remember seeing in the last 25 years? Blackett, McNair and Smalling flanked by a couple of wing-backs, one of whom went off after 15 minutes to be replaced by a diving show-pony. They’ve given us many a stern test down the years but I’ve never seen them so ramshackle at the back. And yet it wasn’t until Olivier Giroud’s cracking 95th minute goal that we found a breakthrough – and at that point it was too little, too late.

Some of it, in fairness, was down to David de Gea who is right up there with the best keepers in Europe. We didn’t work him too hard but credit to him all the same for what was a very polished performance. But the main failing was our finishing. Danny Welbeck, against his old club, had a couple of moments early on when he really should have done better. The free header in particular sticks out – he’s got to hit the target.

Alexis peppered the goal with shots which de Gea was equal too, but then came the moment on which the game should have swung our way. A rare lapse from the United keeper saw his clearance rebound to Welbeck, he fed Jack Wilshere who was clean through, one on one with the keeper from close range and he bottled it. There’s no other way to describe that other than a horrendous miss.

That he had an unmarked Alexis to his left who would have had a tap-in only compounded the frustration. All the same, when a player is 6 yards from goal with just the keeper to beat, you expect him to shoot and you expect him to score. It was, by any standards, a shockingly poor piece of football from Wilshere, and ultimately it proved hugely costly. We can criticise the defence all we like but when you spurn chances like that against any team, let alone one like United, you’re likely to pay the price.

That Wilshere was injured by a nasty challenge as he squandered a great opportunity to create an Arsenal chance in the second half (I think we had 4 on 3) just about summed up his day. Hopefully it’s not as bad as it looks, but if I were the manager I’d have been readying him to come off anyway.

Update: I forgot to mention the incident with Fellaini. With Mike Dean as referee, we can count ourselves lucky that Wilshere wasn’t sent off for what was a stupid and unnecessary reaction to a foul he’d made. I get being frustrated in general, but when you do what he did by pushing his head into the face of another player, 9 times out of 10 it’s a sending off.

If there was an element of ill-fortune about their opener – Fellaini was offside, just, and clearly pushed Gibbs into Szczesny, injuring him in the process – it came about because we failed to take control of the ball in midfield. Ramsey’s header was poor, they took the ball and put in the cross which led to the goal. We were punished further by having to replace Szczesny with Martinez, robbing us of another offensive substitution, but so it goes.

However, the goal came in the 56th minute. There was plenty of time to take stock, get organised and try and build some pressure and momentum. Instead we went full charge of the light-brigade, throwing men forward all over the place, losing any cohesion and shape and with that the chance to apply the pressure necessary to a United defence that was still as raw and makeshift as it was at the beginning of the game.

There was a moment when it looked as if nearly every player on the pitch was on the edge of the United box and we insisted on trying to find a way through the eye of that needle. It meant we were vulnerable to the break and it was surprising to me that it took until the 85th minute, when an exhausted Alexis ceded possession, for them to exploit all the space we were giving them. Afterwards, the manager said:

I don’t know why we had nobody at the back at all – you could see straight away that giving a two against one in your own half means you will be punished against these players.

Well, I know why, all of us know why, the question isn’t why. It’s how come we didn’t do anything about it, and by we I mean the manager. It was just 1-0. Maybe at 2-0 there’s a desperation to get something but it was just one goal. Why was there no instruction from the sideline to be a bit more cautious? How can you sit there afterwards and complain about it when you can do something about it at the time?

Giroud’s goal was tiny silver lining, like the Henry goal at Old Trafford when they did us 6-1 it will be forgotten because of circumstance. Perhaps unfairly because it’s one of the best goals we’ve scored so far this season, but in the overall context it’s always going to be overshadowed.

More from the manager:

At the end of the day we were not efficient enough in the final third, defensively, and we made a mistake at the back which they took advantage of. That’s the story of the game. We had plenty of chances. Their keeper is man of the match. That tells you the story of the game.

And look, if you want to take some positives from the game you certainly can. I thought we began well, the formation and the players he picked seemed to work well together, we made chances, we looked better at the back, and Arteta in particular did the kind of defensive work a ramshackle defence needs to keep things solid.

But those are crumbs of comfort and selective crumbs too. If we win and don’t play well we, rightly in my opinion, don’t pay too much attention to how we played and point to the result as the most important thing. If we play well and lose it’s something of a deflection to discuss whether or not we passed the ball nicely at times. It’s pointless.

The overall record against Man Utd is one that’s vexing lots of people this morning and I understand that. One win in 15 games is an awful record and it’s worse because it’s them, and it was worse yesterday because that was probably the worst United side we’ve faced in years. I think Moyes team last season was better, simply because of the personnel. So it’s frustrating not to get something from a game when you know you really should.

However, sometimes you get runs like that against a particular side and I think the focus should be less on Man Utd and our record against them, and more on us and our record overall this season. 12 games played in the league, 4 wins, 5 draws, 3 defeats (20 goals scored, 15 conceded). We lie 8th in the table, behind teams like Newcastle, West Ham, Swansea and the worst United side for years.

Yes, there’s a long way to go this season, but this is an awful start. Apparently it’s our worst points total after 12 games for 32 years. Having gone into the new campaign on such a high, with the FA Cup under our belts – a win which supposed to free us from the shackles of the previous 9 years – some quality investment in the summer and an overall spend higher than we’ve ever seen, to be where we are now is just so disappointing.

We look like a team that is unsure of how it should be playing, who it should be playing, and one that is unable to do the basics for 90 minutes. Our ability to cope with difficult situations during matches is pitiful, the decision making, the lack of leadership and organisation, we look wayward, like we just don’t know how to cope when things don’t go exactly as we envisage them.

We can point the finger at players and sure, the manager can’t legislate for a professional footballer missing a chance like Wilshere did yesterday, but he’s responsible for the overall make-up of the team. He buys, trains and pick the players and if they can’t do what’s necessary that’s ultimately down to him.

Reasons, excuses, not being able to legislate for this, that or the other, it’s grand talk but that’s all it is. Football is a results business, and right now results are not good enough. The sad part is it’s becoming increasingly difficult to see how they’ll improve because our ability to self-destruct, something we’d worked hard to do away with, has returned with increasing vigour this season.

Yesterday’s result wasn’t down to lack of effort, players not trying hard, or some failure of desire or other intangible that’s often blamed. It was down to a lack of quality overall. And I stress overall because I’ve said before that I think this is one of the best groups of players we’ve had for a long time, but it’s one of the weakest teams. That, for me, is the real worry.

Till tomorrow.