14 years is certainly a darned long wait by any measure for a club having to endure a winless streak of matches at a a traditional arch rival’s home venue.
With the Gunners’ last league win at the venue now dating back to September 2006 with the Red Devils since going 13 games undefeated in the clash when played on their soil, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta is hoping to finally break the club’s 14-year hoodoo of failing to win a Premier League game at Old Trafford when they face Manchester United on Sunday.
More pertinently, the Spanish tactician is hopeful his side can bounce back from a recent league defeat and claim a rare victory at a venue they tend to struggle at. Arsenal have however now lost consecutive games in the Premier League and Arteta is welcoming the chance to get back to winning ways by ending their Old Trafford jinx.
The silver lining in the in the Gunners’ slightly greying Premier League clouds after their 1-0 loss to Brendan Rodger’s Leicester City last weekend was a comforting and reassuring 3-0 victory over Dundalk in the Europa League on Thursday as they continued their perfect start in that competition.
“I think it’s been 14 years since Arsenal have won a Premier League game at United and, after the defeat like we had against Leicester last week, I think it’s the perfect scenario to go there and try to do that,” Arteta said on Friday.
“I’m not concerned about performances because you can see the trend and how we are evolving. It’s just those margins, how we manage the margins within the games and those game moments when we try to get wins and not lose those games.
“It was against Liverpool [in a 3-1 defeat], we had two or three chances to do what they did, the same with Manchester City and the one against Leicester which was a different game because they approached the game in a really different way.
“But again, we will go to Old Trafford with the same mindset to go there and try to win the football match and improve, every three or four days. We are in a process and hopefully we will be a more solid and ruthless team week in and week out.”
Leveling the odds in Arsenal’s favour ahead of Sunday’s clash is the fact that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s Red Devils have failed to win any of their three home games in the league this season. On a positive note for Arteta, the Gunners have also won two of their last three Premier League games against the Red Devils with their most recent match ending in a 2-0 victory at the Emirates.
Arteta will no doubt be keeping his fingers crossed that star attacker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang can be rebooted from his recent goal-scoring slump in his past five league outings and rediscover his scoring touch against United.
This should certainly be a match well worth waiting for.