Five Things We Learned From The Arsenal Game

4) Van Der Sar continues to defy his Age – The goalkeeper that Ferguson admits he should have signed sooner is certainly drawing his career to a close in superb fashion. Although the United faithful call for him to change his mind, it is understandable that Van Der Sar sees it fit to draw his career to a close with grace and without the sorry decline in performance seen so often in professional football. And it is with games like this that he continues to solidify his status among the great goalkeepers at United, and indeed one of the finest to grace the game. His Man of the Match award was certainly justified, producing superb saves in both halves and presenting himself as a wall in front of the United goal.

Saves from a Chamakh free header, a Nasri shot that passed through Wes Brown’s legs amongst many others meant there was no way back for an Arsenal side struggling to make amends for recent failings. It would be fair to say that Van Der Sar is certainly giving United fans reasons to remember him by as he prepares to bid farewell at the season’s end.

5) Hernandez needs more starts – Javier Hernandez has had an extremely impressive start to life in the Premier League. Currently, in the Premier League, he is scoring a goal every 96 minutes that he is on the pitch, a record that is currently the best in Premier League history.

In truth, for someone who has not been playing in England extremely long, I do not expect this record to be maintained as his number of games and minutes increase. It should be noted most of his goals have come from his impact as a substitute this season rather than through his contribution starting in United’s attack but with a greater number of starts is warranted, gaining experience in starting for United and developing his potential and realising the very real prospect of becoming the world class striker that he can be. He was once again a threat against Arsenal, with his pace always causing problems and linking well with Wayne Rooney, combining well for the move that led to Fabio’s opening goal.

All in all a successful day after the events of the past two weeks and a fine way to get the season back on track and once again allowing United to focus on going forward in the hunt for silverware. However, I also hope that Arsenal’s Djourou does not find his injury to be too serious, as has been demonstrated with Valencia, seeing a young player go off on a stretcher is not something that football fans like to see, and will have compounded Arsenal’s misery in what has been a difficult run of late.

For United, an important victory in maintaining their challenge, and although Arsenal threatened often, the resilience and resolve that has been a characteristic of this United team during the season once again provided the win.

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