All good things must come to an end, right? Well that’s exactly what happened on Sunday afternoon as Arsenal’s perfect start came to a brutal end.
Mikel Arteta’s side were on the road to Old Trafford knowing that whatever the result, they would stay top of the Premier League at the conclusion of match week six.
And it may well have been the lack of jeopardy on the line that led to a number of mistakes allowing Marcus Rashford to run riot, contributing heavily in the 3-1 victory.
Gabriel Martinelli had a well worked goal ruled out inside the first 15 minutes, with VAR once again intervening to continue its contraversial run of decisions this weekend.
United then bagged a goal against the run of play with £85m new boy, Antony, opening the scoring before Bukayo Saka levelled things up in the 60th minute.
Whilst Arsenal controlled the game for the majority, United exploited weaknesses with Arsenal’s high line and Rashford wrapped up the three points with two well worked counter-attacking strikes.
The result means Arsenal remain on 15 points from a possible 18 with attention now turning to a welcome distraction in the Europa League on Thursday.
I took a look at some of the biggest talking points and takeaways…
1 – Arteta rolled the dice too hard and too fast
Many will say that the moment United got their second goal is what killed off this game, but in my opinion it was the triple substitution from Arteta.
Never one for a knee-jerk reaction, the Gunners boss took evasive action following Rashford’s first goal and rotated heavily to try and get back in the game.
A trio of attacking talent in Smith-Rowe, Vieira and Nketiah replaced the likes of Zinchenko, Sambi and Odegaard, which massiely interrupted Arsenal’s structure.
Arteta essentially took the core out of the team and suddenly we had Martinelli playing as a left wing-back as the formation turned to a three at the back.
But less than 60 seconds after the change from Arteta, Rashford bagged his second on the break and ultimately wrapped up the win for the home side.
You could see there was a clear difference and Areta will potentially learn from this, but once again there seems to be an over-reliance on his starting XI.