Arsenal vs ManUnited: Time to break the Shackles

We host United at the Emirates today, the second game of our Royal Rumble series and 3 points today against the former champions is the only thing that can heal the wounds caused after the humiliation at Anfield last weekend.  Most of the players have spoken or tweeted apologies about their performances on the day and the manager himself has described the game as some sort of an accident. Today would be a good day to find out if the accident was minor, ghastly or fatal.

United has always been a boogey team for Arsenal and we have always struggled against them in recent years. How we lost to them at Old Trafford is still one of the mysteries of this season as their form was terrible before then and has hardly improved afterwards. With their current form and with David Moyes as manager considering he hasn’t won at our ground in the past would make getting all 3 points against them imperative. As if that wasn’t motivation enough, Chelsea dropped points yesterday and a victory today would see us go back to the summit of the league.

While we have struggled against top opposition this term our main contenders seem to struggle against  weaker opposition and Chelsea dropping points to West Ham and now West Brom, City dropping points at Norwich has meant that even though we faltered at Liverpool and against the Manchester Clubs we haven’t remained far of the top in terms of points difference. We cannot continue to ride our luck for long as at some point we would need to be assertive and produce a run of results that would see us stretch our lead a little to give us some comfort.

This month has some crucial fixtures in it but a more detailed look at the games would show you that they are spread across 3 competitions, meaning the next time we play in the premier league would be 22^nd of Feb against Sunderland at home and Stoke afterwards away. A victory against United today and an expected victory over Sunderland would see us finish the month on top of the league table going into a more crucial month in March. Getting three points today is very very important.

United are faltering, they might not be next season as you wouldn’t expect them to have a summer window as bad as they did last year hence its time to break the shackle they seem to have over us. Moyes can’t seem to figure a way to get them to win and morale in that camp is low. With Mata, Rooney and Van Persie up front they still possess players who on their day can single handedly hurt anyone but collectively at the back they have been abysmal. The Dutch cunt was the difference when we met at Old Trafford and he would be looking to do so today to give the little boy inside of him a few minutes to run around the pitch where he grew up. Twat!

So the normal rhetoric that comes with losing a game has been done by the club, the manager has called it an isolated incident but today would afford us an opportunity to really see how isolated it really is. The players didn’t turn up for Liverpool, every one of them and sometimes playing a strong opposition after a defeat like that is all you need to get your confidence up. United are 7^th of the log for a reason, they have remained 7^th for a long time for a reason and the Arsenal players need to remind them of that with a performance worthy of league winners today.

The team shape for the Liverpool game didn’t seem to assert themselves and the manager might need to string some changes. Whatever happens I would hope Rosicky starts, his awareness and ability to drive the team forwards is a feature no one else replicates in this current Arsenal team, Ozil has to redeem himself today after his failures at Anfield and Giroud would do well to nick more goals against top sides. Going into the run of fixtures we have a big result would help in lifting spirits and stats have shown that we have recovered very well from defeats this season and we need to do it again today.

Prediction : Arsenal 2- Man United 1

Cheers friends! That’s all we could get in, have yourself a great day at work or school or at anything you do.  Want to interact with us? Comments section beneath or on Twitter on @canoncrested

Tonight we go top of the league again. Keep the Canons in your heart!

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