Manchester United defender Phil Jones: Arsenal draw felt like 6-0 loss

Despite Zlatan Ibrahimovic not being available, Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho once again chose to bench captain Wayne Rooney for the club’s clash against Arsenal on Saturday, and he has explained why.

United were held to a 1-1 home draw by Arsenal on Saturday, after a late header from opposition striker Olivier Giroud, meaning that Juan Mata’s strike was cancelled out.

United has dominated its last three home games in the league – against Stoke, Burnley and now Arsenal – and come away with draws from all of them.

Mourinho was keen to stress how United were unlucky not to claim all three points and continued: “Of course it is two points dropped”.

“We all know internally”, Mourinho said, “that in this moment we are the unlucky team in the Premier League”.

He added: “I must say they were [aggressive], they won many challenges”.

“We were phenomenal by the defensive point of view”. But they scored a goal; they were the lucky ones and we were the unlucky ones. “This is the Premier League. they only needed one chance”. “They are unbelievable. They know to be fair and applaud a team that has dropped two points”. “We have very good squad spirit”. “I have a very good feeling with Andre Marriner”, the United boss explained. “Hopefully, we can move on and kick on again with more wins”.

“The problem is when it hasn’t gone to plan and you think it should have been so much better and there are problems to solve,”he stated. “But I can’t really see problems that we need to solve.” “.

But this was a draw that will have felt like a win for Wenger, particularly after Mourinho provocatively cited the Frenchman’s 12-year wait for a league title in the build-up to the game. And honestly, you never know.

“We did not create many chances, it was an intense game”, said Wenger. Some players came back late on Thursday and we travelled on Friday morning and played on Saturday morning. “You won’t be surprised by that”, Wenger said. “I feel very sorry for them”. Yet it developed into a boring affair until Mourinho finally got animated, screaming for a penalty when Antonio Valencia appeared to be brought down in the box by Nacho Monreal.

“He is such a fantastic player and it is a pity, I always loved him”, the Portuguese coach admitted.