Arteta sack chat inevitable if Arsenal lose nightmare opener against Man Utd at Old Trafford

We get the sense that Ruben Amorim will be looking forward to Manchester United’s opening-day clash with Arsenal far more than Mikel Arteta, for whom anything other than a win at Old Trafford will result in some gloriously early sack chat.

Here are five reasons why a trip to Old Trafford is a nightmare first fixture for Arteta…

Polar expectations

Even a couple of seasons ago, Mikel Arteta would have been praised to the hilt for beating Manchester United on their own patch on the opening day of a season; even a draw would have been commendable.

But this is the worst Manchester United team in living memory, or at least it was last season, when the 1-1 draw in the same fixture saw Arsenal described as ‘utter toss’, with Arteta condemned for his ‘Tony Pulis tribute act’. It’s no longer acceptable for Arsenal to do anything but beat Manchester United.

Only one of us reckons Arsenal will win the Premier League, which is as much to do with our burgeoning lack of faith in Arteta to get the job done as much as anything, but they were in all of our top fours, while the only shred of positivity for United to be found in our pre-season predictions came from our resident Red Devils fan Ian Watson, who believes ‘they will be a lot less sh*te if they get a midfielder with legs and a competent goalkeeper’.

READ MORE: Big Weekend: Man Utd v Arsenal, Chelsea, Florian Wirtz and Eddie Howe

Viktor Gyokeres vs Ruben Amorim

We’re bracing ourselves ahead of a fixture featuring a new £70m striker per club, both of whom were heavily linked with the other before making their moves to grant us the delicious prospect of immediate knee-jerking into labelling one a genius and the other a flop amid gloating and gnashing of teeth depending on your red allegiance, for Arsenal and Manchester United to start with Kai Havertz and Rasmus Hojlund up front. We beg you – give the people what they want.

At this stage we would be picking one over the other through a flip of a coin, which doesn’t appear to be far off Arsenal’s strategy. But we do predict Gyokeres will have the tougher time on Sunday.

That’s again partly down to expectation – Gyokeres is ‘the final piece of the puzzle’ for Arsenal, who needs to drive them to the title, whereas Benjamin Sesko has a laughably low bar to clear in order to be a dramatic improvement up front for United.

But there’s also no manager who knows what Gyokeres is capable of – and therefore in an excellent position to stop him – better than Ruben Amorim, without whom the Sweden international would not have got his dream move to Arsenal. Whether the United defenders are able to carry out Amorim’s orders is another matter.

Manchester United might actually be quite good

The defence looks pretty good though. They’ve conceded just five goals in five pre-season games and that area of the pitch was rarely picked out as a problem under Amorim last season. Noussair Mazraoui, Harry Maguire, Lisandro Martinez, Matthijs de Ligt, Leny Yoro and Ayden Heaven looks to be a nice mix of experience and youth to rotate in the three centre-back positions.

There have been good signs from Patrick Dorgu and Diego Leon on the left in pre-season, while Amad Diallo and Diogo Dalot provide very different but decent options on the right. The midfield is the obvious concern as Manuel Ugarte hasn’t got near to proving himself capable of granting United enough stability alongside Bruno Fernandes, hence the interest in Carlos Baleba as a ‘perfect’ fit for that role, at odds with the imperfect Kobbie Mainoo and the formerly perfect Casemiro. And sure, we’re also far from convinced by Andre Onana.

That front three could be a real handful though. It’s about as good a trio as Amorim could have hoped for now that United aren’t able to fish in that top pool of talent. The dynamism and hunger to succeed feels like the big thing among all three of Sesko, Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo, with the deep-seated love of Manchester United (or at least greater love for them than Newcastle) key to Amorim’s desire to sign them.

And while an entirely new forward line could be a problem for United, with the relationship between them not yet embedded, it also makes it very difficult for Arteta to prepare his team as he has no idea what to expect from them.

Ruben Amorim might actually be quite good

It became easy to forget as Amorim lost game after to game to drum up the worst record of any Manchester United manager in the Premier League era last season that he didn’t want to be Manchester United manager last season.

He made it very clear to Omar Berrada when he approached Sporting that his preference was to stay in Portugal and take over at Old Trafford this summer, and said the same again when he was unveiled as the new Red Devils boss, revealing he was forced into a corner by Berrada’s “now or never” ultimatum.

He made a compelling case for not arriving mid-season being the right course of action, admitting on several occasions last term amid some quite extraordinary sack pressure that he may not be the man for the job while many of us queried his unwavering belief in his principles and style of football.

But he’s still here, with his reputation largely intact, after a pre-season he craved to bed in ideas which worked so brilliantly at Sporting and now at least have a serviceable chance of proving successful at United.

There’s a sense of no harm done about Amorim at United. He’s got rid of or sidelined the ‘bad apples’, got a few of his players in and has had time to work with a squad which crucially (hopefully) knows what the end goal is. Could we about to see a ‘new manager bounce’ from someone who’s already been in the job for nine months?

Or Arsenal might be a bit sh*t?

We’re thinking more about the post-match reaction here. We don’t think Arsenal are sh*t, nor do we think they will be sh*t in this game. But, because we will have no barometer for how good Manchester United are, no other games to provide context for their quality, we suspect most fans and pundits will see a United victory as proof that Arsenal have no chance of winning the title rather than say, proving Ruben Amorim’s side could qualify for Europe.

If in doubt, football stakeholders take the path of pessimism, and it’s far more fun to suggest Arteta’s set for the sack than Amorim might be an alright manager, actually.

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