Arsenal's Declan Rice reflects on 'Massive' Man Utd win

Declan Rice knows how big Arsenal's 2-0 win over Manchester United is for the team.

Arsenal continued its recent dominance over Manchester United (oh, how the times have changed), with a 2-0 win at the Emirates Stadium marking the fourth consecutive game that the Gunners have slayed the Red Devils.

In what was a poor first half by Arsenal's standards with United the better side, a half-time team talk and tweaks by Mikel Arteta saw the Gunners emerge from the tunnel a different beast.

After just nine minutes, Arsenal's set-piece power saw Jurrien Timber glance home Declan Rice's corner kick. On another corner, Bukayo Saka turned provider as he found Thomas Partey at the back post before the ball went in via a William Saliba deflection.

It was a second-half of complete dominance from the Gunners, with Rice, in particular, running the show in midfield, covering every blade of grass while also making several runs to stretch the United defense.

It appears our star midfielder is getting back into the groove that saw him elevate his game to new heights last season, and he's reflected on yet another win over United...but admitted it was anything but easy.

“Difficult,” Rice said via arsenal.com. “They’ve obviously changed manager, different tactical approach from them, which we thought was going to happen. They were really solid between the lines, we really good defensively, but in the end our quality showed. When you apply that much pressure with the top players we have, the goals we can score, to win the game was massive.”

Oh, Arsenal applied the pressure alright.

The hosts suffocated United and forced them into mistakes, like Marcus Rashford, who was trying to shield the ball deep in Arsenal territory. When trying to avoid the ball going out for a corner, he managed to fluff his lines and conceded the corner anyway.

And what became of that conceded corner kick? Arsenal's second goal.

In total, United had to defend a whopping 13 corners from the Gunners, and as Declan stated, when there is that much pressure being heaped onto a team, it doesn't matter how good they are, eventually, the dam wall will break...and that's exactly what happened at the Emirates.

With the win, Arteta's team is third, level on points with Chelsea, but behind on goal difference, and with Fulham at Craven Cottage at the weekend, a place where it beat Arsenal last season, there is no let up for the Gunners.

But if they apply that same "pressure" as they did against United, we imagine that it will be a rather happy trip to West London for the Gunners.

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