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MOTD- Arsenal 0-0 Manchester United

By on February 12, 2014

It wasn’t the most enthralling of matches, but David Moyes will breath a sigh of relief at a scoreline that proves Manchester United can still compete against the best clubs despite their recent troubles.  Arsenal on the other hand are viewing the result as somewhat of a missed opportunity to regain their position atop the Premier League, although they themselves were lucky to keep a clean sheet and a goalless draw after they gave away some easy chances to United, another worrisome topic for manager Arsene Wenger to review.

The first of these mistakes came barely ninety seconds in as Mikel Arteta was found napping by Robin van Persie, who dispossessed the midfielder before bearing in on goal and firing in a low effort that Wojciech Szczesny saved with relative ease.  However, once the home side at the Emirates established a foothold in the match they began to push forward, and really should have taken the lead when Olivier Giroud floated a free header wide of the upright from a corner in the third minute.  Tomas Rosicky then had his deflected shot saved by David De Gea, yet the match started to enter a lull with Arsenal unable to break down the United defense.

In fact, the match really only came to life once again early in the second half when Laurent Koscielny’s near post header from a corner swung in from the right looked to be flying into the top left corner, only for Antonio Valencia to clear it off the line with a goal saving header.  Giroud then came this close to breaking the deadlock, but the Frenchman just failed to get enough contact on the ball to tip Bacary Sagna’s tantalizing cross into the back of the net.  Yet United still looked deadly on the break even though they weren’t at all dominating possession wise, and were gifted the best chance of the match eleven minutes before the end of the match as Michael Carrick took the ball off Arteta near the halfway line.  The visitors broke, with Carrick playing it into Van Persie, who drove forward prior to passing it out wide on the right to Wayne Rooney.  Van Persie continued his run down the left side of the box, and Rooney clipped a wonderful cross over towards the far post where Van Persie look sure to score, only for Szczesny to somehow grapple the forward’s header onto the top crossbar and out.  That save would turn out to be the deciding factor of the match, and although Santi Cazorla’s low effort was only just palmed away by De Gea at the bottom left corner neither side could find a goal, leaving both off where they would have hoped to be by the end of the match with only one point.
Man of the Match: Robin van Persie

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.