I Remember Learning How to Dive

(Image from here)

So, according to the papers I've just been reading we were outplayed by Arsenal yesterday. Which is some use of the word "outplayed" that I wasn't previously aware of. Apparently it now means "being equal." In a game in which we were allegedly outplayed take a look at the stats from this report:

Possession 50 - 50
Territorial advantage 49 - 51
shots off target 8 - 6
shots on target 3 - 3
tackles 31 - 18
corners 6 - 5
passing success 73 - 76

Even without saying which is which team above we can see that except in tackling all the stats are very even. We're the first set of stats by the way. One interesting thing is that Arsenal got 6 yellow cards from 18 tackles.
I might as well start with this report from The Telegraph, seeing as it has these stats to go with these words:

his team had outplayed the champions, gone into the lead and somehow contrived to lose, courtesy of an unlikely penalty and a freak own goal.

An "unlikely penalty?" Here's his description:

Wenger was waspish in his verdict of the penalty decision that gave United their equaliser. “Oldtraffordish,” was the neologism he coined for it. True, when Manuel Almunia, the Arsenal goalkeeper, came flying out to challenge Wayne Rooney, the England striker started to go down before contact was made. But there was substantial contact, unlike with the Eduardo incident, so it was a penalty. Rooney converted from the spot.

So it was a penalty. The contact was "substantial." How is this "unlikely?" I'm a little confused. And he goes onto say that, "In the first half, also at the Stretford End, Dean had failed to give a much more blatant penalty." You could probably debate their penalty claim and give it as a penalty, it was certainly a close one, but "more blatant?" I don't think so. And they scored about 30 seconds later, so who cares. The worst is still to come though:

If his players had struck their efforts on goal as cleanly as Wenger struck that bottle, Arsenal would have won this game comfortably. Van Persie was denied by a superb Foster reaction save with his left boot and actually hit the bar with a viciously swerving free-kick of his own two minutes before United took the lead. United, by contrast, were inarticulate, struggling to find their old attacking expressiveness. They gave the ball away relentlessly in the first half and without the outstanding Fletcher could well have been swept aside. They will need to find more conviction if they are to win that fourth straight title.

So they could have won comfortably. He lists 2 incidents. They had three shots on target. We gave the ball away "relentlessly." The passing percentages of the two teams were almost identical. No agenda in this report...
Paul Wilson in The Guardian continues the trend, saying we "got lucky with the penalty." His comparison says more than he intends:

Sir Alex Ferguson's latest attempt to adjust to life without Cristiano Ronaldo was looking about as convincing as Eduardo falling to the floor against Celtic until United got lucky with a penalty of their own.

Of course Eduardo got a penalty for his dive, so he must have looked pretty convincing... The rest of the report isn't worth reading really, just the usual over-praising of Arsenal and criticism of us.
Richard Williams in The Guardian at least manages to get in a bit of decent analysis:

Clearly, it was the job of Ryan Giggs, operating in central midfield ahead of Fletcher and Michael Carrick, to get up in support of Rooney yesterday, with Antonio Valencia and Nani working in the wide areas. Throughout the first half, however, United's captain floundered in his attempts to carry the ball forward from deep positions. Given plenty of possession, he was a couple of yards off the pace and a couple of degrees short of the required accuracy required. But United started the second half with Giggs pushing closer to Rooney, and the Welshman finally came up with a through ball that set Rooney on the path to his fateful convergence with Almunia. "It was the kind of pass we've been trying in training all week," Ferguson said. "We got one." And one turned out to be enough.

This dreadful report in The Independent (Arsenal "dominated" apparently...) is notable for the most stupid comparison ever made:

The penalty [for Rooney] changed the course of a game that was running in Arsenal's favour with the strength of a mountain stream. It was similar to the clash between Eduardo da Silva and Artur Boruc at the Emirates on Wednesday night that has led to a Uefa investigation and a possible two-match ban for the striker for diving.

Seriously?
The other report, by Steve Tongue, in The Independent is better, it accepts the "scruffiness" of the game from both sides, but ruins everything by only citing examples from our side (I should point out that I'm not arguing we played particularly well, but that Arsenal didn't either. One bit of Arshavin skill was the difference in the first half (and Foster should have saved that) other than that their wasn't much skill on display from either side - the last 15 minutes typified the game, we couldn't keep the ball to protect our lead and Arsenal couldn't string a pass together to take advantage of that.)
Jonathan Norcroft isn't too bad in The Sunday Times. He does spend too long looking at the silly comparisons between Eduardo's and Rooney's penalties, but he sums the game up fairly accurately here:

Manchester United deserved a draw for the way, spurred by Ryan Giggs, that they increased the tempo when behind in the second half, three points seemed a generous reward, if not quite, as Wenger argued, “beyond belief”. ...
United were gleeful in victory. Their performance was light on inspiration, heavy on perspiration, reflected by Ferguson suggesting Rooney should have handed the man-of-the-match award given by television to Darren Fletcher.

Fletcher was at his feisty, dilligent best. He was involved in his own controversy when, with half-time near, he cleaned out Arshavin in his own box. Dean declined to award a penalty, presumably because Fletcher’s initial contact was with the ball. Yet the rules suggest that when a player loses control of his body in a challenge and it results in him taking the man, then, irrespective of ball contact, it is a foul.

Which all seems pretty fair.
I'll quote one sentence from The Mail on Sunday's report which will be enough to explain why I'll ignore the rest of it:

But for two moments of quite insane defending, Arsenal looked to be utterly capable of controlling the reigning Premier League champions in their back yard. To their sublime passing they had added a muscular core and only in the dying stages and after morale-sapping reverses did they falter.

Quite.
Doesn't seem to be many quotes about. Here's one from Sir Alex:

"When you're 1-0 down at half-time it's always an uphill task against a team of Arsenal's capabilities and we had to dig deep,' said Ferguson. 'Obviously we had a break with the own goal but we got a clear penalty and I think, in fairness, we really did perform well in the second half.'

He was less than impressed by Arsenal's claims for a first-half penalty. 'I didn't think it was a penalty,' he said. 'Fletcher got the ball cleanly and the referee was only 10 yards away."

And from Rooney:

“No-one really knew who was our penalty taker. Then we got one at Burnley but Michael Carrick unfortunately missed it so from then on I said I’d take them - and thankfully I scored today.”

On the match, he continued on Sky Sports News: “It was a good game.

“I thought we were much better in the second half. Arsenal had a lot of possession in the first half but didn’t really hurt us - apart from the goal.

“The second half we knew we had to be better and thankfully we were. I tried getting on the end of the ball and I’ve done so and the goalkeeper took my legs from me - so I’ve had no option.

“Last season our record against the big teams wasn’t great and Arsenal have started the season well, so we needed to win today.

“Forwards, if they score goals, tend to get man of the match awards - but I think Darren Fletcher was head and shoulders over anyone on the pitch today.”

Couple of other stories, Capello on Owen:

Asked about Owen, who scored his first goal for United last Saturday against Wigan, the Italian said: "He has played three games and we followed him in two. I saw him against Birmingham and he scored a goal the game after. His movement in the box is really, really fast and he understands when to go to the goal."

But when asked whether Owen was in his best form since Capello took charge, the coach withheld judgment. "We have to wait. He's not played a lot of games. He also has to understand the style of United, he has to integrate with the other players – their movement, passes, everything."

Owen has played only once under Capello, as a substitute in the friendly defeat to France in March 2008. Asked whether he would be recalling the striker, who has 40 goals in his 89 internationals, Capello said: "I have to wait," suggesting Owen has only an outside chance.

While The Mirror report that, perhaps surprisingly, we're not signing Steven Ireland from Man City...