MANCHESTER: Arsenal’s Riccardo Calafiori headed home an early corner, aided by a weak challenge from goalkeeper Altay Bayindir, to earn a 1-0 victory at Manchester United in the Premier League on Sunday (Aug 17), spoiling the hosts’ season opener.
Despite a cast of new faces, Mikel Arteta’s visitors proved they are still lethal from set pieces with Calafiori netting in the 13th minute. Arsenal’s William Saliba backed into Turkish keeper Bayindir, who feebly batted the ball with one hand into the path of Italian Calafiori for an easy close-range header.
“Massive (result), to come here with the atmosphere and the new signings,” Arteta said. “We have to be humble about how we scored the goal and the game is won in both boxes which is what we did today.”
United were otherwise the better team, with close-season signings Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo missing good chances, along with Patrick Dorgu. The home side had Arsenal pinned back for most of the second period and kept keeper David Raya busy, forcing him into a diving save to stop Mbeumo’s powerful header.
“I’m really proud of the guys,” United boss Ruben Amorim said. “They were really brave in everything they did during the game. Congratulations for the performance. We deserved a different result.
“We need to win games but that was completely different to last season.”
Set-piece specialists Arsenal have scored 31 league goals from corners since the start of the 2023-24 season, at least 11 more than any other team, and three of their last four league goals against United have been from corner kicks.
“Like always we were working a lot on set-pieces and that is what we showed today,” defender Calafiori said.
