How Did Manchester United Beat Arsenal?

Well its an interesting question to be quite honest with you. I can tell you how they stopped Arsenal but stopping a team doesn't necessarily mean beating them. Today United did both stop and defeat Arsenal through Park Ji Sung's clever finish and some very clever defending.

Subs: Fabianski, Fabregas, van Persie, Walcott, Denilson, Djourou, Bendtner

There were was one change and two enforced ones in the Arsenal line up. Lukasz Fabianski was dropped and surprisingly replaced by young debutant Wojciech Szczęsny and both Van Persie and Fabregas have just come back from injury and were deemed not fit enough to start the game.

Subs: Kuszczak, Brown, Berbatov, Giggs, Smalling, Hernandez, Obertan

Manchester United line up was different in that Berbatov was dropped and Ferguson decided to play one up front as he does in most of United's big games.

What could be seen from the flow of the game was that Manchester United never allowed Arsenal to pin them back in their own half. Throughout the game they played with a high line, pressuring the defenders and deep lying midfielder Song into making mistakes. The chief victim tactic was Gael Clichy who had a shocker of the game giving away possession in dangerous areas numerous times and giving away a penalty which Wayne Rooney missed.

The thing with playing a high line against Arsenal is that it is nearly risk free. Against other teams their is always the worry that a deep runner or a pacey forward might break the offside trap and leave the defending team exposed. Arsenal have no pace either in midfield or in the front three that started the game. Chamakh's aerial threat is also neutralised if you play with a high line and he isn't the type of forward who plays off the shoulder of the last defender so for most of the game Arsenal had the ball in front of Manchester United.

To counter United's control of the game Wenger bought on Van Persie, Fabregas and later Walcott. Out of these changes I feel that Walcott made the biggest impact, not because of what he did but because of the threat he represented. United could no longer play the high line with the risk of Walcott breaking the lines. So they dropped deeper and defended narrowly with Anderson, Carrick, Fletcher and Park this team was designed to do this and in the end the game petered out without any clear cut opportunities for Arsenal

If you look at the statistics it shows Arsenal had a superior possession percentage, tackle success rate, committed more fouls and received more yellow cards. This shows they weren't bullied out of the game and weren't outplayed.

What was the difference between the two teams was that when Manchester United got their chance, they took it. They defended with discipline and showed patience which in the end was rewarded.