Premier League Hangover: Manchester United Youth Savage Anaemic Arsenal

The first flush of youth is intoxicating. It’s nice to be reminded of that once in a while in an era when a bloated Premier League often makes it easy to be immune to the game’s romance.

Manchester United supporters were reminded of it on Sunday. Manchester United supporters were intoxicated.

Like an embattled married couple heading for the divorce courts, it was as though a postcard from the past had been sent to remind them of the good times. To hint at what may follow, if they can somehow smooth out their differences.

From the cradle to the grave, from Sir Matt Busby to Sir Alex Ferguson, blooding young players has been part of Manchester United’s DNA. What happened on Sunday against Arsenal—whether through luck or design—was a reawakening of those principles and how the crowd loved it, how Louis van Gaal loved it.

Even Ryan Giggs broke from his season-long sitting for the club’s official sculptor to celebrate Marcus Rashford’s coming of age.

The straitjacket was finally off.

Arsene Wenger tried it on for size and was still wearing it at full-time when the final shrill of the referee’s whistle sounded a 3-2 defeat for Arsenal.

It leaves them three and five points shy of Tottenham Hotspur and Leicester City, respectively, who both ground out victories that had all the hallmarks of title winners.

Arsenal fans don’t need reminding of the past. Having witnessed more chokings than a maitre d' at a restaurant that only serves fish bones, a languid performance at a critical juncture in the season is nothing new. It was depressingly familiar, a failing of character that plays on a loop in north London.

The great American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote in correspondence with a relative: "After all, life hasn't much to offer except youth, and I suppose for older people, the love of youth in others."

For someone in possession of a back that makes a sound not dissimilar to a creaking trapdoor in a Hammer Horror film every time I retrieve my son from the bath, that’s quite the demoralising observation.

Yet, at the same time, it was hard not to mirror Rashford’s smile that threatened to split his face when his first-ever shot as a Premier League player gave him his first-ever Premier League goal. Those that choose to mark the occasion by making pithy comments about Federico Macheda must have blood-type cynicism.

Like the cold snap of an icy wind on a sunny day, it woke everyone inside Old Trafford with a slap on 29 minutes. Everyone, that is, except Arsenal, who allowed him to do it again three thrilling minutes later.

From the first minute, there was a sense Arsenal thought they had the game won when they saw United’s teamsheet.

Injuries meant three academy products started. In addition, all of United’s six outfield substitutes were also academy graduates.

Of the XI that finished the game for the home side, only two were over the age of the 26. Van Gaal also handed debuts to Timothy Fosu-Mensah and James Weir off the bench; that is now six debutants for United in the past month.

Somewhat pointedly—if you’re listening, Jose Mourinho—the Dutchman spoke of how he was in tune with the club’s culture at the game’s conclusion, per the Daily Telegraph:

"

It is the culture of Manchester United. That is why they took me as a manager, I think.

You see, youngsters give always a spirit to the team. That is a very important aspect of my philosophy. ...

That is why we have a small selection: because then you can give youngsters a chance. A big selection means they don't get a chance.

"

As a microcosm of the game, for illustrative purposes, United’s first goal was picture-perfect.

Theo Walcott, whose invisible-man performance after being preferred to Olivier Giroud saw him have no shots, create no chances and complete six passes in 63 rank minutes, lost possession near halfway to hound dog Ander Herrera. The England international touched the ball 17 times and lost it on 10 of those occasions.

The ball was worked to Guillermo Varela down the right flank and from his clipped cross, Gabriel Paulista made a hash of his sliding clearance, leaving Rashford to lash home with fierce eloquence from close range.

Arsenal’s glass chin had been shattered. Wenger was still trying to get smelling salts onto his players when Rashford did it again. The crash of a title tilt hitting cold canvas could be heard back in the capital.

The 18-year-old Mancunian ghosted into the six-yard box to deftly nod Jesse Lingard’s cross past Petr Cech, after Varela had improvised brilliantly to keep Juan Mata's wayward pass alive.

Four goals from four one-touch finishes in two matches. Doing it against FC Midtjylland is one thing; doing it against Arsenal another thing entirely. Van Gaal will take particular pleasure from the fact his young striker had heeded his advice to station himself between the width of the goal.

"In the first half he ran too much at the sidelines," Van Gaal said of Rashford’s performance against Midtjylland, per the Independent. 

"I said to him at half-time to be in the width of the goal and you shall score. Then he scored two goals – it is fantastic for him."

And repeat.

When he did pull wide, he reminded of the man he had replaced, the injured Anthony Martial. He has the same knack of perpetually having the ball right at the end of his toes, enticing defenders in like cheese in a trap before whipping it away. Rashford’s goals will steal the headlines. Maturity to his hold-up play was in many ways equally as impressive.

When Danny Welbeck, like Rashford a product of south Manchester youth side Fletcher Moss Rangers, reduced the deficit with a header of his own five minutes before half-time, the momentum swung back to Arsenal.

United met it head on. Juan Mata is never less than neat, but too often he is peripheral when indulged with the No. 10 role he craves. On Sunday, he mixed guile with pugnaciousness and with his head up and shoulders straight, he was nothing less than imperious. A Napoleon-like figure, the Spanish schemer conducted his comrades with measured wisdom from the centre of the battlefield.

It was from his reverse pass that Rashford made inroads on Arsenal’s box midway through the second half.

After working a yard in Arsenal’s box, the natural inclination for any young player, not to mention one on a debut hat-trick, would be to shoot. Rashford decided to play percentages, holding possession before playing a perfectly timed pass into the path of a marauding Herrera on the edge of the box.

United’s third goal owed much to a huge deflection the midfielder’s shot took off Laurent Koscielny. Not as much as it did to Rashford’s maturity beyond his tender years.

Wenger was prickly post-match but, to his credit, he showed good grace in praising Rashford’s performance. Few things stoke the Frenchman’s fire more than the blossoming of young talent.

"The timing and intelligence of his movement was great," he conceded, per the Independent. "He could be a very positive surprise for Manchester United."

By and large, United have served up the footballing equivalent of gruel this season. In contrast, this was a visceral delight.

Murphy’s Law may have deprived the home side of 13 senior players, yet it may just keep Van Gaal in a job. The skeleton side he selected reconnected the club and its supporters. 

Rashford, Lingard, Varela and Memphis Depay were all outstanding. In the case of the latter, it’s too soon to say whether the proverbial penny has dropped. On Sunday, though, it was as if he had an epiphany, realizing no player that sees himself as an island will last long at Old Trafford.

His performance recalled a line in Hermann Hesse’s Gertrude: "Youth ends when egotism does; maturity begins when one lives for others." A poetic way of saying Depay tracked back.

To a man, Old Trafford stood and saluted the next generation, as an edge returned to a stadium that for much of the past 18 months has felt like a weird hybrid of library and mausoleum. A place to go to in order to be quietly depressed in crowded solitude.

Here, it was rejuvenated. The precociousness of youth infected one and all. Even Van Gaal was moved to the point where he not only stood up, but bounded across the touchline to remonstrate with the fourth official. He'd not even finished writing his shopping list in his big black book.

Van Gaal’s autocratic methods may be verging on the antiquated, but the man knows when to seize a moment, how to whip up a crowd already teetering on frenzy. Like a harpooned tuna being reeled onto a ship’s deck, he flung himself to the turf on 75 minutes in remonstration at what he perceived to be Alexis Sanchez’s winning of a cheap foul.

Celebrity match official Mike Dean wore the worried look of a man fearing his own theatrics had been upstaged. On Oscars night, too, of all nights. Wenger looked on as if he’d been beamed into a parallel universe he despaired being part of.

Post-match, Van Gaal apologised to the match officials, per the Daily Mirror.  There’s really no need, Louis. This is what we all expected when he arrived in Manchester at the start of last season. Finally, he’s delivered. Finally, United look a side ready to entertain.

When Mesut Ozil pulled one back, just four minutes after Herrera’s goal, Arsenal still had 21 minutes to salvage at least a point.

What proceeded to happen will have had Wenger’s psychiatrist rubbing his hands in glee at the prospect of double overtime. If the meek really shall inherit the Earth, Arsenal will be fine. Otherwise, in May, it will be 13 years and counting without a title.

In meandering to defeat, they showed about as much bite as a digestive dropped in a vat of tea. The fight that saw them get back into the title race with a last-minute goal against Leicester City in their previous league game was conspicuous only in its absence.

Wenger said post-match that he couldn’t fault the commitment of his players. That’s fine, Arsene, no one expects a manager to air his dirty laundry in public. We’ll do it for you.

Arsenal were disjointed, joyless, limp, characterless, cowardly and, by and large, pathetic.

There was a great moment back in the Sky Sports studio (see tweet below). Graeme Souness had worked himself into such lather over Arsenal’s performance he was challenging his fellow pundits to a game of Catch Phrase, with what felt like the high stakes of Russian roulette.

"There is a word I want to use, which I can’t use, that describes a lack of something that real players have—and this Arsenal side lack it an abundance."

"Is it boll…" injected David Platt, before presenter Ed Chamberlain cut to an impromptu ad break.

Such was Souness’ ire—brilliantly, spellcheck on Word offers sourness as an alternative spelling—it would not have been a surprise had he stripped to his pants and marched down to the tunnel to sort this out with Wenger once and for all.

Wenger’s more a duel kind of guy, often carrying vintage pistols in the pockets of his sleeping-bag coat in the event he ever has to challenge a managerial counterpart to decide a touchline spat from 12 paces.

To conclude, perhaps it’s best to go back to the start. The two teams came out onto the field to the strains of the Stone Roses’ This is the One.

Perhaps She Bangs the Drums would have been more apt, containing as it does the line: "The past was yours. But the future's mine. You're all out of time."

Over to you, Arsene.

 
Meanwhile, over on the other side of north London...

 
Leicester aren't doing too bad either...

Chelsea rise gathers momentum

 
Classic plays out at Vicarage Road

 
Celebration of the season as Hammers keep on coming?

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