Good afternoon and welcome to our live minute-by-minute coverage of Arsenal v Manchester United at the Emirates Stadium.
It’s nip and tuck in the race for the top four, and it just got a little bit more interesting with Liverpool’s stalemate at home to Southampton.
Will either of their two closest pursuers be able to take advantage?
Here’s how the top six looks ahead of kick off. For now, a top four finish and Champions League qualification is back in Manchester United’s hands – but if they fail to win today, it will be advantage Liverpool once again.
TEAM NEWS: Two changes for the Gunners – Rob Holding and Danny Welbeck start ahead of Gabriel and Giroud.
Arsenal: Cech, Holding, Koscielny, Monreal, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Xhaka, Ramsey, Gibbs, Ozil, Sanchez, Welbeck
TEAM NEWS: Jose Mourinho said he’d have to make changes – and he has, eight of them from the side which beat Celta Vigo on Thursday night.
It includes a debut for 19-year-old Axel Tuanzebe. Big day for the young lad.
Manchester United: De Gea, Tuanzebe, Jones, Smalling, Darmian, Carrick, Herrera, Mkhitaryan, Mata, Martial, Rooney.
Just in case anybody bought the Mourinho spiel and thought that by “making changes”, he was somehow prepared to field a team of 15-year-olds, BBC 5 Live have crunched the numbers:
The teams are out on the Emirates pitch, so it seems like a good time to remind you that Arsene Wenger has never beaten Jose Mourinho in a competitive match.
You’d be fairly sick of the sight of him, wouldn’t you?
KICK OFF: Andre Marriner is the ref and he gets us underway.
First flicker of a chance for Wayne Rooney as he rises to meet Juan Mata’s cross but glances it over the bar. He’d have expected to at least test Cech.
Accurate.
Sniff of a chance for Arsenal now as Sanchez starts the move from deep and they go down the left with Gibbs on the overlap. There’s a bit of a scramble in the box and when Sanchez follows up, he can’t do much with it.
And now Martial, who forces Cech into a smart save at his near post to concede a corner. End-to-end start, even if the chances haven’t been of the highest quality.
SAVE! Arsenal break and Sanchez threads a beautiful pass into the path of Ramsey. He goes across De Gea with his shot but the United keeper gets a strong right hand down to push it away. Great chance, well taken – but a fine save.
Tuanzebe looks to be detailed to a form of shadowing role on Sanchez, following the Chilean out into midfield when he drops a little deeper. United seem happy enough to let Arsenal have the ball 30 yards out.
Of course, the fear for Arsenal is that United will hit them on the break. They try to counter but Koscielny gives away a smart foul on the halfway line before things can get too serious.
Oxlade-Chamberlain gets himself in a muddle when a short corner is played back to him. Martial closes him and looks to have won possession but as he breaks towards the Arsenal half, he’s whistled for controlling the ball with his arm and play is brought back.
Mata swings a free from the right towards the back post and when Mkhitaryan turns it back across goal, it comes off an Arsenal leg last — apparently — and goes behind for a corner. Cech is first out to that one and punches clear.
Mata manages to spring the offside trap down the right and get in behind Gibbs. He tries the first time cross, with Mkhitaryan charging through the centre, but it’s too close to Cech who comes and claims.
BIG BLOCK! There’s a scramble in the United box and Welbeck is the one who gets the ball under control. He turns and shoots, couldn’t be more than eight yards out, but Phil Jones is there with a sliding block to protect de Gea and concede the corner.
Arsenal are knocking on the door here – three chances in the space of 60 seconds and, somehow, United survive. There’s a great ball from Alexis Sanchez which nearly picks out Ramsey sliding in at the back post, but he just can’t steer it on target. Then Oxlade-Chamberlain stings de Gea’s palms with a drive from the edge of the box.
Still, 0-0.
Oh my, that could have been catastrophic from Rob Holding. His attempt to play a short square pass is criminally underhit, and it falls to Rooney. Cech stands big and makes the save – but wow, that would have been embarrassing.
Sanchez is pulling the strings for Arsenal, unsurprisingly, and again he’s the one who tries the little chipped pass over the top to Welbeck. Welbeck goes for the Emre Can-esque acrobatic finish, trying the overhead kick, but misses it entirely. The linesman’s flag was up anyway – although I think Tuanzebe might just have been playing him on?
HALF TIME: Arsenal 0-0 Manchester United
Still, that was decent, wasn’t it?
Back in five.
SECOND HALF: We’re back underway. Who will be first to find a breakthrough?
Quiet start to this second half. If you’re still making your cup of tea or whatever, don’t worry – you’ve missed nothing.
Yep.
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GOAL! Arsenal 1-0 Manchester United (Xhaka 54′)
I’m not gonna lie, I was all set for another 35 minutes of sarky comments while this fizzled out into a 0-0 draw, but no, Granit Xhaka had very different ideas.
He lines up a shot from ridiculously far out and because there’s nothing else on, he has a go anyway. Ander Herrera turns his back — he’s going to be absolutely slaughtered for that one — and it clips him and loops over a helpless de Gea.
Now we’ve a game.
GOAL! Arsenal 2-0 Manchester United (Welbeck, 57′)
Does Danny Welbeck celebrate against his old club? Does he what! Arsenal have a second within three minutes, and it’s Dat Guy™ with the goal.
Oxlade-Chamberlain gets the better of Darmian down the right, swings over a cross. Welbeck steps between defenders because marking, who needs marking, and he bullets his header off the underside of the bar and in.
United sub: Mkhitaryan off, Lingard on. Rashford looks like he’ll be in pretty soon as well.
United sub: Rashford does make his entrance, for Ander Herrera. There’s a “turning your back” joke to be made there if anyone has the energy.
Good effort by Rooney. His free kick is so far out that it’s always going to take something extra special to beat Cech, but he gets it up and done and close enough to the corner that Cech has to dive and push it behind for a corner.
Koscielny lunges in on Martial and brings him down. Yellow card, and not a peep of an argument.
Inches. Arsenal break and Xhaka has Ramsey steaming through the middle. If he slips the ball through, it’s a one-on-one between Ramsey and de Gea, but Michael Carrick flings a leg in the direction of the ball and gets enough of a touch to take the sting out of the attack.
That wasn’t a million miles away from Rooney. It might have took a nick going through but it was only a foot or two over Cech’s bar in the end.
Arsenal sub: Coquelin comes on for Xhaka who is after pulling up with an injury.
Ten minutes left here and, barring a miracle, Wenger will have his first competitive win over Mourinho. The United youngster Scott McTominay is getting a final briefing from his boss on the line.
ROONEY! It falls to him again on the edge of the box – almost the exact same position as his chance a few moments ago – and he gets under it, spinning it over the bar again. He looks angry with himself.
Arsenal double sub: Bellerin and Giroud on for Oxlade-Chamberlain and Welbeck.
United sub: And here is Scott McTominay, on to make his United debut in place of Juan Mata.
Aaron Ramsey is named Man of the Match, with an honourable mention for Laurent Koscielny from Gary Neville.
Three additional minutes to be played…
Sanchez tries to unlock the United defence one last time for good measure, but his reverse is just a bit too firm for Ozil to get on the end of it.
McTominay! Imagine! The ball falls to him on the edge of the box and he snaps off a shot. It brushes Rooney’s leg before Cech grabs it, but that would have been some introduction for the youngster.
FULL TIME: Arsenal 2-0 Manchester United
So that’s it. Manchester United’s long, long unbeaten run is finally over – and with it, is their chance of a top-four finish also gone? All eyes on Thursday night and the Europa League now.
For Arsenal, well, the dream is still alive. One down, four to go.
And here’s how it leaves us…
So that’s it from us for now. Thanks for reading and for commenting.
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