Manchester United moved on to the FA Cup fifth round today by besting Arsenal at their home ground and in the competition that they have excelled in the most recently. United emerged triumphant 3-1 at the first FA Cup meeting between the two teams at the Emirates Stadium.
Although this was not a Premier League fixture, the result could conceivably have tremendous consequence on the race for top four in the league. On one side, United made it eight wins from eight games under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. On the other side, Arsenal saw their injury crisis in defense take an ever sharper turn for the worse. Let’s run through the major takeaways from this result.
Arsenal have already two defenders, Rob Holding and Hector Bellerin, out for the season. Now they have major concerns in Laurent Koscielny and Sokratis as well.
“I think this is not a big injury to Sokratis, it is his ankle, and Laurent Koscielny is going to the hospital to do the analysis,” Gunners boss Unai Emery responded when asked about the injuries.
“Maybe he has broken here,” Emery stated as he pointed to his jaw, “I hope not, but we have to wait.”
Arsenal and United are currently level on points in the league table with 44, just three behind Chelsea for the final UCL qualification slot of fourth place. The Gunners are ahead of United on goal differential by three.
United got their scoring tonight from Anthony Martial (31′), Jesse Lingard (33′) and Anthony Martial (82′), while the lone Arsenal goal was scored by Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang.
Here’s video of the Lingard scoring strike, which was the game winner:
?? | Cool as you like, @JesseLingard pic.twitter.com/y4q7Z2N3Sv
— Emirates FA Cup (@EmiratesFACup) January 25, 2019
Meanwhile Romelu Lukaku earned man of the match for this one has he achieved two assists within a two minute span; on the Lingard goal and the Alexis Sanchez scoring strike which opened the scoring in this match.
Lukaku’s heroics led to social media users having a lot of fun with that statistic.
You know it's Arsenal when Lukaku gets 2 assists inside 33 minutes.
— Troll Football (@TrollFootball) January 25, 2019
In 35 minutes of one FA Cup game, Romelu Lukaku has more assists than Mesut Ozil does in the Premier League all season #mufc pic.twitter.com/OvYNAAKdap
— United In Focus (@UnitedInFocus) January 25, 2019
https://twitter.com/debrxyne/status/1088901457728995328
United will next host Burnley in league play on Tuesday night while Arsenal will host Cardiff City.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.