Erik ten Hag appears to be working his way through the English players in his squad and giving them a reboot. First came Jadon Sancho, who scored his second goal of the campaign in Manchester United’s 1-0 victory over Leicester City on Thursday. Now it is Marcus Rashford, who scored a brace and provided an assist as Arsenal were dispatched 3-1.
Both attackers have been sub-par for too long, their dips coinciding with United’s own, but there are signs that the pair are embracing Ten Hag’s style of play and the Dutchman’s coaching. Rashford’s display against Arsenal was his most impactful in recent memory, and the manager said afterwards that he believes there is much more to come from the forward.
“Marcus played a pressing game and he transferred really good,” said Ten Hag, whose side have now won four successive games. “But we expect of him as a striker to be a target, dropping, to play over, linking, running behind, arriving in the box and of course scoring goals.
“I am really happy with the performance, it shows his development. Room for improvement is clear but he has great capabilities so I am happy with having him in the team.”
There was plenty for the Old Trafford crowd to take to as they ended Arsenal’s perfect start to the Premier League season. Antony, signed for £85million from Ajax, scored on his debut and demonstrated why Ten Hag was so keen to sign him. Not only did the Brazilian break the deadlock in the first half but he also pressed Arsenal’s defence and kept posing a threat when cutting in from the right wing on his left foot.
“I know what he can be, I talked before the game we needed that on the right wing,” Ten Hag said of his former Ajax player. “With his pace, his dribbles, his pressing capabilities, he’s really good with that, we’ve seen that and at this moment he lacks a little bit of power, he missed some training, injury the last 10 days.
“You can see his potential. He has to work for it to get that, the intensity of the Premier League is going to be high and a challenge for him, but we’ve seen his potential today, it’s great he scored the first goal.”
The fourth successive win is United’s best Premier League run since April 2021 and they are just three points off Arsenal at the top of the table, despite a wretched start. But the United manager moved to quell any expectations that his team can challenge for the title this season and insisted that there is plenty more work to be undertaken at the training ground.
“I understand fans are dreaming, the standards of Manchester United has to be good, we’re at the start of a process, we’re still far away,” he said. “We have to get doing things much better than we do, that’s an investment, we have to do that way together every day, we have to get better if you want to win trophies in the end.”
'We played as we wanted to'
Defeat checked Arsenal’s early-season form but it might have been different had Gabriel Martinelli’s first-half strike not been ruled out by another contentious VAR decision. Martinelli converted after Christian Eriksen had been robbed of possession but referee Paul Tierney ruled the Dane was fouled by Martin Odegaard after checking the pitchside monitor.
“I haven’t seen the action, they said it was a soft foul. We just want them to be consistent” Mikel Arteta said.
Despite dropping points for the first time this season, Arteta saw plenty of positives from Arsenal’s display. They controlled possession for large spells and once again their attack oozed class and control. Bukayo Saka’s second-half equaliser was his first goal of the season but the 10th successive goal scored via a left foot for Arsenal.
“We have to live consistently with the top teams and challenging at the top of this league you have to come here and play the way you play,” Arteta added.
“To play the way we did today, I don’t think you will see too many teams do this season. What I saw is a very different Arsenal team who came here and played the way we want to play against world-class players. Unfortunately we didn’t get the result we deserved.”