There was a moment in the second half of Manchester United‘s visit to Arsenal when it looked like the Gunners were really going to go for it.
With the score 2-1 in United’s favor and the clock ticking past 58 minutes, Arsenal made some audacious changes. Coach Mikel Arteta swapped out control-minded players like Piero Hincapie, Martin Zubimendi and Martin Odegaard for his strongest offensive creators. You could almost see United’s eyes widening as Arsenal made the changes: for the final 30 minutes of the match, it would have to handle Leandro Trossard, Ebereche Eze, Mikel Merino, Viktor Gyokeres and Bukayo Saka, all at the same time.
Arteta rarely lays his offensive cards on the table quite like that. He knows his bench is deep and he prefers to keep it that way. If he can rest some of his attackers while still winning games, he will.
He couldn’t Sunday. United was confident, brash and disrespectful in all the best ways, and it was coming for the win. Arteta knew he needed to get in United’s head as much as he needed to get in United’s goal. His mass attacking substitution at the 58th minute was intended as a rare show of Arsenal’s force.
It didn’t pan out. Trossard, Eze, Merino, Gyokeres and Saka never looked more threatening than the moment they all gathered together after those substitutions. When the final whistle blew 30 minutes later, ending the game 3-2 in United’s favor, Arsenal’s attacking quintet had managed an open-play expected goals tally of just .81.
That’s not power. That’s pointless. And so was Arsenal, on a night when it needed every point it could get.