Arsenal ’emotional reaction’ spotted as football broke out at Old Trafford

Arsenal won at Manchester United and there were ’emotional reactions’ all over the shop, not most from Declan Rice.

Chain reaction
There’s little doubt that Manchester United were improved against a stuttering Arsenal on Sunday afternoon (you can read 16 Conclusions that say as much in a lot more words here) and there was no shortage of narrative, with the Manchester United goalkeeping situation and the non-performance of Viktor Gyokeres chief among them.

But do you know what their absolutely wasn’t? Any real controversy. There was no Mikel Arteta outburst, no Ruben Amorim meltdown, no red card offence, nothing more than a half-hearted penalty appeal.

That won’t do, will it?

Emotional Arsenal reaction said it all vs Manchester United

Sorry, what? We didn’t see any ’emotional Arsenal reaction’? But then we weren’t in the Old Trafford press box to watch some Arsenal analysts getting slightly annoyed about Arsenal (who won, remember?) being a bit sh*t like the Manchester Evening News. Most of us go to the football to watch the, erm, football, but each to their own…

Two Arsenal analysts sat together in the press box and one became particularly animated as United wrestled back control in the fixture after falling behind from a corner. There was even a moment when the Arsenal analyst reacted to a misplaced pass and lashed out at the desk in front of him.

That’s definitely worth a headline – that two men employed by a football club might get rather agitated when their team makes a mistake. The fact that the headline is illustrated with an image of Mikel Arteta on the touchline is presumably just an admin error.

‘Reaction’ is clearly high on those Excel documents circulated by SEO experts, because the MEN also bring us this:

88th minute reaction confirms Manchester United’s biggest problems vs Arsenal

And what was that ’88th minute reaction’ that confirmed United’s biggest problems, which are presumably that they cannot score goals?

It’s so monumental that Samuel Luckhurst does not even mention that reaction until the 21st paragraph of a 26-paragraph piece, almost like it’s really not that important at all.

United are at risk of giving up on Manuel Ugarte, Casemiro’s purported heir. He replaced him and attempted an 88th-minute pot shot that endangered the Stretford Enders and caused his coach to curse.

And that’s all he wrote. But it’s a ‘reaction’ so it deserves headline status. We almost feel sorry for Luckhurst, diligently writing hundreds of words about the club he loves, only to see them all reduced to clickbaiting a ‘reaction’ that amounted to the square root of f*** all.

Don’t make us feel sorry for Luckhurst, guys.

But if we want to talk reactions, we have to talk about Declan Rice apparently shouting at his teammates. Now, we missed this in real time so thank you to football.london for bringing this to our attention:

Why Declan Rice shouted at Arsenal teammates as Viktor Gyokeres breaks first Premier League rule

Why indeed. We can find no footage of this shouting and no reference on social media. It’s a ghost shout everywhere but this particular publication.

We scan and scan and scan until finally…

Rice, acting as the cool presence, spoke to his defenders and instructed them to switch on.

So he ‘shouted’ while ‘acting as the cool presence’? FFS. Can we all not just accept sometimes that there was a football match and it was mildly interesting?

Statement signing?
One trend of modern online journalism – not just football, but across the whole industry – is the re-framing of the social media post as a ‘message’, usually ‘cryptic’.

But now a ‘message’ is not enough; any person posting on X or Instagram is ‘issuing a statement’, which used to be reserved for actually issuing a statement. We miss those days.

So no, Mirror, Brighton’s Carlos Baleba did not ‘issue fresh statement amid Man Utd transfer confusion’, he merely posted on Instagram that he quite likes playing football, thank you. Oh and that he has a new haircut. Presumably amid some scissors.

Chain reaction statement ahoy
What happens when ‘reactions’ meet ‘statements’? As ever, the Manchester Evening News are on hand:

Manchester United reaction says it all as Alejandro Garnacho statement is made

The ‘reaction’ that really ‘said it all’ was that the Manchester United players were ‘disappointed’ to lose 1-0. That really does ‘say it all’.

But was there an ‘Alejandro Garnacho statement’ made on social media? Was there balls. But there was an image of Garnacho that had been defaced with an X.

So in short, Manchester United’s players were disappointed to lose a game, while one fan brought a pen to the game. More as we get it.