New season, same glaring weakness: how have Man United allowed this issue to persist?

Last week, Marcus Rashford told Gary Lineker that back in the days when he played under Louis van Gaal, he would become angry and frustrated when he felt Manchester United had played badly.

It took José Mourinho to explain to Rashford that the scoreboard should be the sole arbiter of his emotional wellbeing.

“If you could choose, [Mourinho] would want you to play well,” Rashford said. “But if you win, you win. You move on to the next game… because he’s a manager that is just a winner, he doesn’t bring up the points that you know was missing from that last game because we’ve won. But when we lose, he brings up the points then. But after like six months, I just learned to respect it and then I started to reap the rewards from him as a coach.”

It was a good insight into why “just” a winner Mourinho hasn’t won a league title in 10 years. Top coaches these days are expected to offer something beyond acting like everything is great when their team wins, and rounding on the players when they lose. Most of them understand that the main goal – “winning” – is best achieved by pursuing a secondary goal – “playing better” – and focus their efforts on trying to help their players do that.

Nobody would suggest Mikel Arteta is “just” a winner. He hasn’t won a major trophy since the FA Cup five seasons ago. If Arteta had not successfully convinced the Arsenal hierarchy of the primacy of process, they might already have sacked him and gone looking for someone who seemed like more of a winner.

[ Calafiori pounces on Bayindir error as Arsenal grind to win at Manchester UnitedOpens in new window ]

From Mourinho’s point of view, Sunday’s victory at Old Trafford would have been a magnificent day for Arsenal. From the process point of view, it was less encouraging.

We know that Arteta’s Arsenal have evolved from the Guardiola tribute of his first seasons to something much more direct and forceful.

Look at the players who joined in the 22-23 season: Gabriel Jesus (5’9”), Oleksandr Zinchenko (5’9”), Leandro Trossard (5’8”), Fábio Vieira (5’6”). Compare to some more recent signings: Kai Havertz (6’4”), Mikel Merino (6’2”), Declan Rice (6’2”), Riccardo Calafiori (6’2”), Cristhian Mosquera (6’3”), Viktor Gyokeres (6’2”), Christian Norgaard (6’1”), Martin Zubimendi (6’0”). Even the skilful winger Noni Madueke stands over 6ft tall.

Mourinho, a renowned lover of big men, would approve. He also would have enjoyed the way Arsenal scored the only goal of the game.

The first Arsenal corner of a new season is always an exciting moment. Five players lined up on the edge of the box as Rice prepared to take the kick: what manner of Cirque du Soleil magic were Nicolas Jover’s charges about to unleash on the Theatre of Dreams?

Manchester United's Matheus Cunha appears dejected as Arsenal's Gabriel celebrates after the final whistle. Photograph: Nick Potts/PA Wire

Actually, it was a traditional move. Rice hit a powerful inswinger, William Saliba charged United’s goalkeeper Altay Bayindir, knocking him off balance as he tried to punch clear, and Calafiori snapped up the chance at the back post.

There was confusion for those of us who remembered as far back as last Thursday, when English football’s refereeing impresario Howard Webb announced that PGMOL intended to clamp down on grappling at set-pieces involving players “impacting [other players’] ability to move to the ball”.

Saliba’s bulldozing of Bayindir surely would fall afoul of the new guidelines, and the goal would be disallowed? Of course not. The pundits blamed Bayindir, Roy Keane accusing him of being “weak” and “soft”.

Arteta and his coaching team deserve credit for understanding the culture of English football and exploiting it to the maximum. Other teams are finally catching on. Afterwards United’s captain Bruno Fernandes did mention the supposed injunction against grappling, but acknowledged that players don’t take anything PGMOL says too seriously. Even Rúben Amorim said he didn’t have a problem with it, as long as his players made sure to do the same thing at the other end of the pitch.

Indeed, the most encouraging aspect of United’s performance on the day was the sheer aggression with which they competed against an Arsenal team who had far better players in most positions. Debutant Bryan Mbeumo set the tone by forearm-smashing Zubimendi in the face as he brought a ball under control for his first touch. Such actions thrilled the crowd and set an optimistic tone.

It was the other debutant in United’s starting XI that really stood out. Matheus Cunha was involved in all the game’s few flashes of excitement, those moments when an individual suddenly breaks through the established patterns to make something happen where nothing looked on.

The worrying thing about the game for Arsenal is that they seemed trapped in those patterns, nobody more so than their own star attacking signing, Viktor Gyökeres.

Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim reacts during his side's defeat to Arsenal. Photograph: Stu Forster/Getty Images

There is enough reactive criticism on social media these days without columns like this piling on. Suffice it to say that Gyökeres’s first hour in the Premier League gave the haters plenty of ammunition. Only time will tell whether his leaden performance was down to stage fright or something more intractable.

Luckily, Arsenal have more strength in reserve than any other team. Havertz is an unexceptional centre-forward but obviously a better all-round footballer than Gyökeres; on replacing him he immediately started to link play better, completing 10 passes in the last 30 minutes, where Gyökeres had managed just four in the first 60.

The nightmare for Arsenal would have been the “now let’s see what you could have won” option, Benjamin Šeško, coming on and making a big impact for United. They were spared that at least, and saw out the win largely because, unlike them, United don’t yet have strength in depth.

With Amorim still stubbornly unimpressed by Kobbie Mainoo, the home team’s midfield substitute was Manuel Ugarte, whose poor decisions in the closing stages did so much to bring the result home for Arsenal.

How, you wondered, can United have gone so long without addressing this glaring weakness? Remember that Jim Ratcliffe pointed to Casemiro as an example of bad recruitment as early as a meeting with the club hierarchy in March 2023, (that is, before his takeover, and so long ago that Casemiro was still playing quite well at the time).

Ratcliffe has now been in charge of football operations for three transfer windows. United have spent almost half a billion euro on new players in that time, and yet here they were starting yet another new season with Casemiro at the heart of their midfield.

Meanwhile, their best performer since Amorim came in – Amad Diallo – started on the bench, with the €70 million signing Mbeumo having taken his place in the inside-forward line. Ratcliffe’s new football structure still needs to untangle its priorities.

Arsenal, as we saw, now have credible options in every position. But champions usually make winning look easier than this.

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