Ruben Amorim admits Arsenal’s set-piece threat was the difference during Manchester United’s defeat at the Emirates.
Amorim suffered his first defeat as Manchester United manager following a 2-0 loss in North London on Wednesday night. The result ended United’s seven-game unbeaten run across all competitions and leaves the Red Devils 11th in the Premier League table.
Arsenal’s goals both came from set-piece situations. Jurrien Timber flicked in the opener from a Declan Rice corner, before William Saliba steered in a second after Thomas Partey had headed Bukayo Saka’s corner back across goal.
The Gunners have scored more set-piece goals than any other side in the Premier League and Amorim believes that was the difference between the teams. He said Manchester United were ‘controlling the game’ in stages but struggled to deal with Arsenal’s deliveries into the penalty area.
“We already knew that it would be a tough game. I think the corners changed the game, the set-pieces,” he reflected in his post-match press conference.
“Then we lost the momentum, we tried everything then to control the game again. You feel it in the first half, in the environment of the stadium, that we were causing problems. We need to improve in a lot of areas of our game, but we were controlling the game.
“They are very good (at set-pieces) because they have a lot of time working on that. Especially on that, they have big players for that, so it is a strategy, and we had two weeks to work on that. We tried to do it but we know every team in the Premier League is suffering with set-pieces. It was a shame because we were not playing very well but also Arsenal was not playing very well.”
