Arsenal Aims for First Win in 46 Years Against Man Utd as Mikel Arteta Seeks to Exploit Michael Carrick's Struggles in North London

ARSENAL’s latest challenge in their bid to win a first Premier League title for 21 years comes in the shape of resurgent old foes Manchester United.

The late 1990s and early 2000s were dominated by these two sides, as they won nine successive titles between them from 1995-96 to 2003-04, the last of them by Arsene Wenger’s Invincibles.

And now the two go head-to-head in North London with looking for another positive result after his fantastic start in the Manchester derby last weekend.

But the Gunners can have confidence going into this game with two league records in their sight.

They have won each of the last four Premier League clashes at the Emirates, which is already their longest run against United.

Victory here would make them the first side to win five home fixtures in a row against for 46 YEARS, since managed it between 1976 and 1980.

Mikel Arteta’s side are also six unbeaten in the league against the Red Devils – they have never gone seven league games without defeat to United.

And Arteta has certainly taken advantage of United’s malaise in recent years, winning eight of his 12 games against them (D2 L2) – at 67 per cent, it is the highest win rate of any manager to face them at least five times.

The Gunners have built their foundations on a solid defence and although they have drawn their last two games 0-0, they have not faced a single shot on target in those matches, the stalemates at home to and away to Forest last time out.

That makes it five times this season an opponent has failed to have a shot on target against Arteta’s side – since data for this began in 2003-04, only Man City in both 2017-18 and 2019-20 have restricted more sides to no shots on target in a season, six times on each occasion.

Centre-back has been a key part of the backline and has conceded only 90 goals in his 118 games in the Prem – an average of a goal every 115 minutes.

Of all players to play 10,000 minutes in the competition, only (one every 118 minutes) has a better ratio.

The Gunners could be the 13th side in Prem history to draw three successive games 0-0, and the first since in December 2015.

They have had three stalemates in a row themselves three times – four in a row in both February 2009 and October 1993, and a run of three in September 1998.

However, United have shown an improvement since Ruben Amorim’s departure, ranking top for both shots attempted (41) and shots on target (17) across all Prem teams in that time.

And Carrick has already got the better of Arsenal and Arteta, with a 3-2 win in his previous stint as caretaker boss in December 2021.

Carrick has now won four games in all competition over his two spells in charge at , beating , , Arteta and in those games.

Eze Chidiebere Paul

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