Blazing sunshine and a busy new marquee serving craft ale behind the Stretford End: Manchester United began in a shiny new world and finished in the gloom of another defeat.
First look at Altay Bayindir’s howler that handed Riccardo Calafiori an easy header. But then zoom out and you see this: a crisis at No 1 for United that features Ruben Amorim going all summer not fancying André Onana and still turning up for the season opener without a replacement. Result: dropping the Cameroonian completely.
Arsenal failed to fire throughout – Viktor Gyökeres’s 60-minute debut was a non-event – but they didn’t need to with United so dismal at both ends.
Towards the close Bryan Mbeumo and Amad Diallo tripped over Arsenal players in a hectic scramble to cancel out Calafiori’s strike: a snapshot of United’s chronic toothlessness. Moments later, a better Mbeumo headed effort drew a good save from David Raya. There were further goalmouth scrambles but no United player could stick the ball in the net.
In a middling contest, Amorim’s team had to do what the visiting left-back did – with this 13th-minute goal a disaster for United and a joy for him. Declan Rice arrowed a corner in from the left, a clownish Bayindir merely palmed the ball on, and Calafiori nodded home a ball already heading in.
