Arsenal vs Manchester United – Premier League: Live score, team news and updates – Daily Mail

Twelve minutes of the second half had elapsed when Bruno Fernandes bent down and placed the ball on the penalty spot at the Emirates. He took a few deliberate steps backwards. What was left of Manchester United’s shambolic, chaotic, misshapen season was on the line. A Champions League place was on the line. He began his run-up.

In the week they announced yet another new manager – Erik ten Hag is the latest to be handed that poisoned chalice – and succumbed to a humiliating 4-0 defeat to Liverpool, that run-up felt like a symbol of quite how diminished United have become: halting, stuttering, uncertain, mannered, lacking conviction, lacking nerve.

Fernandes stopped as he got to the ball and then rolled his kick slowly towards the goal. The stadium watched as it kissed the outside of Aaron Ramsdale’s right-hand post and trickled tamely into touch for a goal-kick. And just like that, United’s season was over. A season that has brought them nothing except mockery and disappointment and derision and an interim manager and an interim interim manager.

A goal then would have brought them level with Arsenal at 2-2 and given them hope of winning the game and moving alongside their opponents in the race for fourth place. Instead, they fell to a 3-1 defeat that leaves them six points behind Mikel Arteta’s team with four games to play. Spurs may be out of their reach, too. ‘For me even before the game the top four was not very likely,’ United’s caretaker boss Ralf Rangnick said, ‘but after today’s result, it is gone, yes.’

Arsenal deserved their victory on the back of a first half where United’s defence, shorn of the scapegoated Harry Maguire, simply could not cope with the brilliance of Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka but this was a crazy game of missed chances and VAR calls and the home team were indebted to their visitors for hitting the woodwork three times when a more clinical side would have punished them.

Only Cristiano Ronaldo emerged from United’s defeat with any credit. The arguments can rage about whether United should have signed him for a second time last summer but he played at The Emirates even as he was grieving the loss of his infant son in childbirth last week.

His mental strength and his determination have never been in doubt and he must have had to call on all his reserves of it to play here. Not for the first time, he showed up the callow men around him by scoring his 100th Premier League goal for the club. He had another goal disallowed for a marginal offside. If he had taken that penalty, not Fernandes, United would have been level.

So much for the fantasy that Maguire’s absence might rectify the problems in United’s defence. Rangnick had said United needed open heart surgery, not a sticking plaster, and only two minutes had gone when Arsenal, still buoyant after their thrilling victory over Chelsea last week, took the lead courtesy of a series of errors that made the visiting back four like extras in a Laurel and Hardy film.

Granit Xhaka swung over a cross from the left corner of the area and it went straight to Raphael Varane. Varane, the defender who was supposed to bring a cultured approach and a sense of poise to Old Trafford, took a wild swing at it like a drunk trying to start a fight at the end of a night out. He missed and the ball continued across the area.

Next, it fell to Alex Telles. He swung at it with his left foot. He also missed. The pair of them looked as if they were part of a grotesque ballet. The ball ran to Saka on the edge of the six yard box. He took a touch to control it and then stepped inside Telles to hit a left foot shot goalwards. David de Gea parried it but it fell to Nuno Tavares, who volleyed it home from close range.

It was soon apparent this was going to be an uncomfortable afternoon for both defences. Ronaldo played Anthony Elanga in behind the Arsenal back line and Aaron Ramsdale was forced to save smartly at his near post. Scott McTominay headed wide from a corner and Fernandes, taking a rare break from moaning at the referee, should have taken advantage of a dreadful clearance from Ramsdale but delayed his shot long enough for it to be deflected wide by Gabriel.

This was all in the first quarter of an hour. It was breathless, often brainless, stuff. Diogo Dalot hit the Arsenal crossbar with a thumping, dipping shot. Elanga burst through again and claimed he had been brought down by Tavares as he tumbled in the box, VAR did not agree.

United were entitled to feel aggrieved soon after though when Jadon Sancho bamboozled Cedric Soares to such an extent that Soares fell and appeared to scoop the ball away with his hand. He escaped sanction but it was obvious that this was going to be a match where each team would have plenty more chances to score.

Arsenal got another after 25 minutes when an Odegaard flick put Eddie Nketiah clean through in the box. Nketiah was so surprised to have time and space eight yards out that he slammed his shot straight at De Gea and the Spain goalkeeper only had to stand firm and block it out with his fists.

A minute after that, though, United were punished for more ineptitude. Saka played a one-two with Odegaard, rushed into the box and was brought down by Alex Telles. The ball broke to Nketiah, who scored but a VAR check showed he was offside.

United rejoiced but their celebrations were short-lived. Another VAR check suggested Saka had been fouled and referee Craig Pawson pointed to the spot. Saka sent De Gea the wrong way with his penalty. VAR: enemy and saviour to Arsenal in the space of a few seconds.

This was the type of game where one of the teams would need a cushion far greater than two goals to feel even remotely safe and ten minutes before half time, Nemanja Matic swung a ball in from left, two Arsenal defenders watched and waited and Ronaldo nipped in between them and lifted it expertly over Ramsdale with his left foot.

Ronaldo, who had missed United’s defeat to Liverpool as he and his family mourned for their loss, crossed himself and looked to the skies as he walked back to the centre circle. He had the admiration, as well as the sympathy, of everyone in the stadium.

Twelve minutes after half time, United were presented with a golden chance to equalise. Matic and Tavares leapt together at a United corner and when Matic won the header it rebounded off the defender’s outstretched arm. Most expected Ronaldo to take the penalty but he agreed Fernandes should take it. His Portugal teammate took a stuttering run up and then clipped his penalty against the outside of Ramsdale’s right hand post.

The cameras focussed on Ronaldo’s stony face but it was not long before he was causing more danger. He got the ball inside the Arsenal area and played a perfectly weighted pass to Dalot, who had hurtled past him on the overlap. Dalot smashed his shot goalwards but Ramsdale got a hand to it and tipped it on to the post.

United could not believe they were still behind but 20 minutes from the end, Arsenal went further ahead. United, once again, were authors of their own downfall. Arsenal were appealing for a penalty for handball when the ball was cleared to Fernandes on the edge of the United area. He allowed himself to be dispossessed and when it fell to Xhaka, he lashed a thunderbolt of a shot past De Gea from 20 yards. It was his first goal of the season.

United never looked like forcing their way back into the game after that. Arsenal move forward with new optimism, knowing that their clash with Spurs at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on May 12 will be pivotal in the struggle for the top four. United go home with nothing.

ADAM SHERGOLD COVERED THE MATCH LIVE AND YOU CAN RE-LIVE THE ACTION AS IT UNFOLDED BELOW