Impressive Gunners beat United to give new manager Arteta his first win in charge
ARSENAL
Pepe 8, Papastathopoulos 42
MANCHESTERUNITED
2
0
at the Emirates since 24 October and gave the supporters a glimpse of what life could be like under the Spaniard.
Arsenal pressed throughout, attacked with purpose and were organised from a defensive point of view for the first time in a long while as they moved back into the top half of the Premier League with this result.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer would have been left perplexed by the performance of his United side, who missed the chance to move within two points of the top four.
Arteta recalled Pepe and in the process started the record signing alongside Mesut Ozil, Pierre-emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette for the first time. United were once again without Paul Pogba, but did have Arsenal’s nemesis Jesse Lingard in the starting XI.
The Gunners had impressed in Sunday’s 2-1 defeat by Chelsea
and despite the defeat made another rapid start at the Emirates. Captain Aubameyang combined with the returning Sead Kolasinac down the left and his cross took a deflection and dropped for Pepe to fire home after seven minutes.
Solskjaer’s side entered this following back-to-back wins, but were second best and made too many mistakes. And, two minutes before half-time, Arsenal added to their lead when Sokratis was on hand to thump home as Arteta saw his team make a positive start to 2020 with the Emirates a cauldron of noise at full-time. minute – his ninth goal in ten games.
Watford extended their unbeaten run to four games with a 2-1 win over Wolves at Vicarage Road. Gerard Deulofeu (30) opened the scoring and then set up Abdoulaye Doucoure to drill in a second in the 49th minute before Pedro Neto reduced the deficit on the hour. Watford had Christian Kabasele sent off in the 71st minute.
Connor Wickham struck an 85th-minute equaliser as Crystal Palace drew 1-1 at Norwich. Todd Cantwell gave the Canaries a fourthminute lead, but Wickham equalised with a goal given after a VAR check, having initially been ruled out for offside.
Earlier, a brilliant bicycle kick by Alireza Jahanbakhsh (84) earned Brighton a 1-1 draw at home to Chelsea ,and Aston Villa won 2-1 at Burnley with Wesley (27) and Jack Grealish (41) their scorers.