Two quickfire goals in the second half at the Emirates stadium saw Arsenal bring an end to Manchester United's 25 game unbeaten run in the Premier League on Sunday afternoon.
After an even first half in which both sides had chances, the Gunners took the lead nine minutes after the restart when Granit Xhaka's long range shot found it's way in the back of the net via a deflection.
Three minutes later, they doubled their lead when United old boy Danny Welbeck powered home a header to earn Arsene Wenger's men a huge victory in terms of trying still to finish in the top four at the end of the season.
The win for the Gunners means that they are now just two points behind the Red Devils, who remain fifth after this result, with a game in hand which sets up an exciting finish to the season.
Both managers made changes to their lineups before the game
As expected before the game, both managers made key changes to their teams for different reasons. Wenger made a couple of changes to his lineup with former Red Devil Welbeck coming into the side at the expence of Oliver Giroud. The Gunners also started to the game with three at back which they have adopted for the last few weeks.
Jose Mourinho made eight changes to his United team with such a big semi-final second leg to come against Celta Vigo on Thursday. Axel Tuanzebe was given his senior debut while Phil Jones, Chris Smalling and Juan Mata returned to the side after recvoering from injury.
An open start to the game seen chances missed at both ends
The game itself starting off very open and that allowed the visitors to almost take the lead very early on when Wayne Rooney played a good through pass to Anthony Martial, who was playing as the central striker from the start, but the striker saw his goalbound shot well saved by Peter Cech.
The Gunners responded well to that chance and they almost took the lead themselves when a good through pass from Alexis Sanchez found Aaron Ramsey but the midfielder was denied by a brilliant save from David de Gea.
The only other real chance that the home side had in the first half came from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain as he tested De Gea qith a great striker from a long way out.
Holding bailed out of trouble by Cech before half-time
Rooney was another player that was brought back into the starting lineup by Mourinho and he was gifted with a brilliant chance to give United the lead before half-time when Rob Holding's poor back pass went straight to him but he was denied by Cech, who made himself big but the striker would have been disappointed with himself.
The Gunners had most of the ball in the first half as it came to and end but saw a stubborn United defence in their way for most of it and would have to find some way to get the crucial breakthrough in this big game, while Mourinho would have been wanting more of the same from his side after the break.
Slow start to the second half ended with the Gunners scoring two quickfire goals to earn victory
The second half started very poorly as United had plenty of the ball early on without doing much with it which was good if you didn't go on to lose the game and that is exactly what they did.
The Gunners opening goal of the game though came out of nothing as Xhaka picked the ball up a long way out before unleashing a fierce strike towards goal and via a deflection from Ander Herrera, the ball looped over De Gea into the back of the net.
It was two a couple of minutes later when a brilliant cross into the box by Oxlade-Chamberlain found Welbeck who peeled off his marker in the box before powering his header into the back of the net via the crossbar leaving De Gea with no chance of saving it.
The visitors barely threatened to get back into the game after the quickfire goals with Rooney coming the closest to scoring from a free-kick but it wasn't to be as the Gunners saw the game out to bring an end to United's 25 game unbeaten run in the Premier League.