(Football news) While victory for Manchester United would give them their 100th triumph over the Gunners across all competitions, the North London giants could win successive top-flight games at Old Trafford for the first time in the Premier League era.
An Iberian manager, only in his 30s, taking charge of one of England’s most successful clubs of all time and struggling to inspire an immediate turnaround. Criteria that could be used to describe either one of Sunday’s sides, although Ruben Amorim has already conceded that he does not expect the Mikel Arteta treatment from his superiors.
While the current Arsenal boss was given ample time and resources to turn the Gunners into title challengers again, Amorim may never be far from the axe so long as Manchester United’s pitiful form continues, and the less said about their domestic season as a whole, the better.
As well as languishing in a meager 14th place in the Premier League table, Manchester United’s FA Cup title defence was in tatters last weekend thanks to Fulham and their own former Gunner Bernd Leno, meaning that their final shot at redeeming a woeful campaign lies in the Europa League.
A 1-1 draw with Real Sociedad in Thursday’s last-16 first leg at least puts Amorim’s men in an advantageous position before next week’s return fixture, but they have now only won two of their last seven in all competitions, and neither of those victories over Ipswich Town or Leicester City was convincing by any stretch.
Furthermore, the 20-time English champions have failed to win consecutive Premier League games all season long and have conceded multiple goals in six of their last seven top-flight games at Old Trafford, but exorcising those demons could allow the hosts to celebrate win number 100 over their red-and-white foes.
As Manchester United attempt to make it 100 up against Arsenal, Arteta will make it 200 up in the Gunners chair, as the Spaniard reaches a double-century of Premier League games in charge of Sunday’s visitors and does so seeking a 119th victory to go alongside it.
Only Sir Alex Ferguson, Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho and Jurgen Klopp have earned more than 118 wins from their first 200 games in the competition, but each member of that esteemed quartet has something that the Gunners boss does not; a Premier League title as a head coach.
The Spaniard’s agonizing wait to deliver another top-flight crown to North London will seemingly go on for at least another year, as failures to make the net ripple against Nottingham Forest and West Ham United have left them 13 points below Liverpool, whose lead will stretch to 16 on Saturday unless they somehow fail to beat Southampton at home.
However, Arsenal astonishingly defied their selection crisis in the final third to annihilate PSV Eindhoven 7-1 in midweek, becoming the first team to ever score seven goals away from home in a Champions League knockout game as they prepare for an inevitable quarter-final with either Atletico Madrid or Real Madrid.
Arteta’s rejuvenated attackers will need to be on song if they are to prolong their exceptional recent sequence against Manchester United, who have lost each of their last four league games against the Gunners, including a 1-0 defeat in this exact fixture last year.
The visitors are therefore just 90 minutes away from back-to-back league wins at Old Trafford—a feat that they have not achieved since 1979—but January’s FA Cup third-round loss to Amorim’s side gives both the red half of Manchester, and indeed the red half of Merseyside, hope.
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