Arsenal 3-1 Man United: Declan Rice nets dramatic 96th-minute winner with his first Gunners goal before Gabriel Jesus adds a third after Martin Odegaard cancelled out Marcus Rashford opener

Score more goals, Declan Rice was told when he moved from West Ham to Arsenal this summer. Score more goals if you want to be mentioned in the same sentence as Graeme Souness and Roy Keane and Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard and other great midfielders. Fix the one thing that’s missing.

Six minutes of extra time had passed at the end of Arsenal’s grim duel with Manchester United at The Emirates when Rice, which cost the Gunners £105 million, got away from the back post to take a deep corner kick from Bukayo Saka to the chest.

Until then, he was the best player in the game. At a decent distance. He looked like the man bought to win the title and was riding in a team fighting not to back down after the challenge against Manchester City last season.

Rice dropped the ball. There was a forest of players between him and the goal. But he realized he had time. Jonny Evans couldn’t rush to meet him due to a wrestling match with Gabriel. Gabriel was now on the grass, but Evans was still a few feet away.

“The old me would have put that back for a cross,” Rice, who was still looking to score his first goal for his new club, said later, “but the last minutes of the game are about fine margins and if you don’t shoot, you don’t score.’

Rice knew this was probably Arsenal’s last chance to clinch victory in the season so badly needed to gain momentum and clear doubts. They had just been given a reprieve from VAR when United thought they had a winner. They were denied their own punishment. They struggled to get anything close to top gear.

So Rice put his foot through the ball. Evans, making his first appearance for United since 2015, got a tap and it cost Andre Onana the ball into the visitors’ goal. Onana touched it, but he couldn’t stop it. The ball settled into the back of the net. The stadium exploded.

Rice rode off towards the corner flag and received the applause of the crowd. Everyone had been telling him to score more goals and this was a big one. This was the kind of moment he was bought for. This was the kind of moment he moved into. This was the kind of performance that was expected of him.

Gabriel Jesus gilded the Lily with a third goal, a brilliant finish even later in extra time, but it was Rice’s strike that took Arsenal past United and it was his performance that gave the club’s supporters hope that they could take their challenge against City this season. season.

It was the end of a dismal day for United, which had begun with news that the Glazers might have decided not to sell the club after all, and ended with more evidence that the progress they made last season under Erik ten Hag seems to have come to a halt. Came. It already feels like a difficult season is ahead at Old Trafford.

Rice had started the match brilliantly for Arsenal. He was everywhere, dominating midfield, dispossessing Bruno Fernandes and patiently and confidently building from the back, the fulcrum of everything. It already looks like an excellent purchase.

Kai Havertz’s presence in the Arsenal squad was not met with the same enthusiasm. Havertz, who was bought from Chelsea for £65 million, has had a rocky start and Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta resisted calls to sack him ahead of United’s visit. It feels like he’s already playing under unbearable pressure.

So it felt inevitable that Havertz would get the first chance of the match and equally inevitable that, overwhelmed by a desire to prove himself to the armies of doubters at his new club, he would take that chance and let United escape.

It came on 13 minutes when Dalot tried to clear a cross, but only managed to head straight at Anthony Martial. The ball fell twenty feet away on Havertz and sat up beautifully in front of him.

He swung at it with his left leg, swinging and threshing, rather than with any certainty or technique, and got only very weak contact. Even then, Arsenal might have scored, but as the ball passed to Nketiah, the ball was poked away by Martinez for a corner kick. The crowd groaned at United’s luck. Havertz put his head in his hands.

Arsenal had the best of the game but couldn’t force more chances and United opened the scoring with their first attack. Poor Havertz gave the ball away with a careless pass, Eriksen broke from midfield and passed a fine ball to Rashford, who had barely touched the ball until then.

Rashford ran towards Ben White and William Saliba and as they retreated the United cut in on his right foot at the edge of the Arsenal area and curled the ball around them. Aaron Ramsdale put his left hand on the shot but could only push it to the inside of the post.

Arsenal immediately hit back. Arsenal’s lead lasted barely a minute. Arsenal attacked on the left, Nketiah put the ball back to Martinelli and he played a nice pass across the box into Odegaard’s path. If you can hit a sidefoot shot into the net, Odegaard has succeeded. Onana didn’t stand a chance.

Seeing Martial still in a United shirt feels both an anachronism and a symbol of United’s shortcomings in the transfer market. If he ever had a purple spot at the club, it was a very long time ago. But he only came to life ten minutes after the break when his shot was deflected by Ramsdale. Rashford threw himself into the follow-up, but his shot was blocked by Saliba.

Arsenal thought they had won a penalty just before time when Havertz charged into the box and went down under a challenge from Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Casemiro. Referee Anthony Taylor pointed to the spot, but VAR called him to the screen to review the decision.

Taylor reviewed the footage and ruled that Havertz had not been touched. Arteta and the Arsenal crowd were outraged. Havertz is the player who simply cannot catch a break.

United’s £72 million summer contract from Atalanta, Rasmus Hojlund came in midway through the second half for Martial to make his debut for the club and made an immediate impact. Unfortunately, it would have been hard not to be an improvement over Martial.

Arsenal should have won the game ten minutes before the end. A ball from Martinelli found its way to Bukayo Saka, eight yards out, with only Onana to beat, but Saka hit a tame shot straight at the United goalkeeper, who blocked it with his thigh.

Arsenal managed to escape on their own in the last minute of normal time when substitute Alejandro Garnacho, after clever work by Hojlund and Fernandes, ran for a through ball and let his shot slide past Ramsdale. VAR showed that Garnacho had been marginally offside in the run-up.

Rice stepped up to score the critical goal, then Jesus sprinted through the lead pack, flipped Dalot onto his back and slid the ball past Onana to seal Arsenal’s victory.