. Manchester United were played out of the park by an inspired Arsenal FC side inside the first 20 minutes of their encounter on Sunday at the Emirates stadium.
The Gunners went 3-0 within 19 minutes as Alexis Sanchez, Mesut Ozil and Theo Walcott combined to wreck havoc against the Red Devils. Sanchez opened the scored with a cheeky back-flick of an Ozil cross, before Ozil placed one into the bottom corner from a Walcott pass. Walcott assisted his second goal of the evening as Alexis Sanchez jinked past Matteo Darmian and unleashed an unstoppable drive into the top corner from around the edge of the box.
Spanish midfielder Juan Mata has been Manchester United’s most consistent player this season, but even the former Chelsea FC man was unable to help the Red Devils mount a comeback. The Gunners replaced the Old Trafford outfit at 2nd in the league table and Mata, who maintains a blog of his own was upset with himself and his team following the horror show.
Mata acknowledged that a start like the one they had was ‘unacceptable’, but vowed to bounce back from the drubbing as early as possible.
Here’s an excerpt from Juan Mata’s blog:
Ita s not easy to write today and to find words of encouragement after a game like this, but we have to carry on. As you could see, everything went wrong in the first half. Before the game, our goal was to keep the top spot of the Premiership, but it wasna t our day as we saw from the kick off.
Arsenal started with more intensity, they scored very quickly and with no time for our reaction they scored the second goal. Not even 10 minutes have passed and things were already looking very bad. A start like this from us is unacceptable; if we want to fight for big things we must learn the lesson as soon as possible. The only thing I can say is that we shouldna t play a game like this again. When we were starting to react and move the ball, Alexis scored the third one.
Ita s not easy to beat Arsenal at their stadium, but when you lose 3-0 after the first 20 minutes then ita s almost impossible. From that moment we tried to stop them but we didna t create chances, only a good one from Anthony right before half time. If we had scored that one, things could have been different, but nothing happened after the break. We tried to get back into the game, fighting until the end, but obviously we were penalised by our horrible start.