Arsene Wenger ended on the wrong side of his final battle with Jose Mourinho with an all too familiar late goal in a frustrating 2-1 defeat against Manchester United at Old Trafford.
Old Trafford has always proved a tough ground for us and our team selection, although partly forced by injury, was somewhat surprising. For some reason I'd convinced myself that Greek defender Dinos Mavropanos was out on loan, so to see him suddenly handed his debut was alarming. To his credit though, Mavropanos put in an impressive display and looked more solid than our so-called regulars have this season.
Ainsley Maitland-Niles was probably our stand-out performer and our usual shaky defence didn't actually look too bad at Old Trafford. The worry was more at the other end as we didn't create enough chances, with just three shots on target in the whole match.
Manchester United goalkeeper David De Gea is among the best in the world and it was always going to be tough to get one past him. We did in fact manage that through former United player Henrikh Mkhitaryan, but De Gea barely had a save to make all game which isn't good enough. We put together some decent moves in attack, but without much of an end product, and that was the most worrying thing for me in this match.
I was frustrated to see Mkhitaryan subbed off with 15 minutes remaining as he was causing United problems, but it was later revealed that the Armenian had taken a knock to his knee.
Before the game Sir Alex Ferguson gave Wenger a silver vase in a pre-match presentation in tribute to the Frenchman who is leaving Arsenal at the end of the season after 22 years with the club.
Back to the match and it was Manchester United who had the better of the early chances, with Nemanja Matic and Paul Pogba scuffing efforts off target. Calum Chambers had to be alert to deny Jesse Lingard with an excellent last-ditch tackle soon after.
Arsenal tested De Gea after 15 minutes via Reiss Nelson's shot from distance, but the youngster's effort was comfortably saved by the Spanish goalkeeper.
That wasted opportunity proved costly as United took the lead after 16 minutes. Pogba passed to Romelu Lukaku, who lofted the ball over the defence before former Gunner Alexis Sanchez saw his header superbly deflected onto a post by Hector Bellerin. Unfortunately for Arsenal, Pogba was on hand to side-foot home the rebound into the roof of the net.
Arsenal came agonisingly close to levelling the scores soon after when Maitland-Niles' back-heel set up Mkhitaryan, but the Armenian's effort went just wide.
The Gunners continued to attack with the lively Alex Iwobi releasing Bellerin in space before the right-back crossed for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, whose header was saved by De Gea.
Ashley Young came close to giving Manchester United a fortuitous second goal four minutes before the break when his cross hit a post.
The final chance of the first half fell to Arsenal with Maitland-Niles again in the thick of the action. The 20-year-old set up Aubameyang, who crossed for Nelson, but the youngster's header sailed wide.
Arsenal were back on level terms within six minutes of the restart when Granit Xhaka won the ball in midfield and set up Mkhitaryan, who took time before calmly slotting a shot into the bottom corner from 20 yards.
The goal seemed to galvanise Arsenal with Mkhitaryan coming close to doubling his tally soon after, but his curling effort went wide.
Danny Welbeck worked tirelessly at both ends of the field when he came off the bench to replace Nelson after 64 minutes. He did excellently well to steal possession back for the Gunners soon after, but his long-range shot was comfortably saved by De Gea.
Manchester United continued to pose a threat at the other end, with only a brilliant headed clearance by Mavropanos stopping an attack to put the ball behind for a corner.
Substitute Joe Willock tried to run at the United defence in the closing minutes as he sprinted clear from his own box and fended off a challenge before releasing Welbeck. Fortunately for the hosts, Chris Smalling was on hand to slide in and clear the danger.
It looked as if Arsenal would at least get a point for their troubles when Fellaini's header hit the post and went in off Marcus Rashford and was rightly ruled out for offside in the final minute of normal time.
Wenger's last Premier League trip to Manchester, however, ended in failure as substitute Marouane Fellaini nipped in front of the defence to head home Young's cross in stoppage time.
OPPOSITION VIEW
Manchester United fan Aran Scarrott was pleased with the result, although he acknowledge it was a rather "unconvincing win" over the Gunners.
"In the end, I guess it was another unconvincing win in a fairly unconvincing season," said Scarrott. "Having said that, we are starting to dig out results when not playing too well and scoring some Fergie time goals again, so some positive signs.
"Arsenal are clearly going for Europa glory, like we were this time last season."
MY FINAL THOUGHTS
We actually played fairly well for spells, especially the performances of Mavropanos and Maitland-Niles, but ultimately we came away with nothing.
Although there are some positives to take from the game, they are outweighed more by the fact that we are still yet to register a point on our travels in the league in 2018 and this is simply unacceptable.
I never thought we were going to be getting a top-four finish the way the last few months have been, but after this latest defeat it is now mathematically impossible.
Being down in sixth is not good and it could yet get worse. That defeat leaves us only three points ahead of our next league opponents Burnley.
Burnley should not be taken lightly and will be tough opponents, but if Wenger's final league game at the Emirates is to end positively than nothing other than a win will do.
The atmosphere should be electric and I expect an improved performance, but Burnley will be up for it too so there will be no margin for error and we need to be far more clinical in attack.
Before we can even think about that we have an even more important match - the second leg of our Europa League semi-final away at Atletico Madrid.
The tie is evenly balanced in terms of the scoreline at 1-1, but with an away goal to their name and such a good defensive record on their own turf, it is going to take a mammoth effort for a team struggling on their travels to get a result.
If Wenger is to have any chance of ending his reign on a high then Thursday's encounter will be pivotal. It is going to take a big effort to overcome Atletico Madrid, but we must not give up and must get behind the lads.
COME ON YOU GUNNERS
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