Granit Xhaka’s cracker caps Arsenal’s wild win over Manchester United

The game was in the balance, Manchester United pushing hard and threatening an equaliser for 2-2, Arsenal on their heels. Then, in an isolated raid forward by the home team, Granit Xhaka brought his left foot down like a sledgehammer and everything changed.

Bruno Fernandes had just missed a penalty for United. Now he was caught in possession on the edge of his own area by Mohamed Elneny, and when the ball was worked to Xhaka 25 yards out he had only one thing on his mind. The connection was impossibly sweet and the shot screamed past David De Gea.

It had been a pretty fraught afternoon for Arsenal, with Mikel Arteta’s team riding their luck. But now United were broken and it would be Arsenal’s top four hopes that were boosted. United, by contrast, are surely out of the race.

After all of the criticism in the wake of the 4-0 humbling at Liverpool last Tuesday, after all of the home truths from the interim manager, Ralf Rangnick, including the one about the squad needing open heart surgery, this was an improved United performance, at least at one end of the pitch.

United created a huge number of openings with Diogo Dalot, the right-back, twice hitting the woodwork. The returning Cristiano Ronaldo, who scored their goal, had another one narrowly ruled out for offside. Their frustration was total, encapsulated by Fernandes: he was fortunate to escape with only a yellow card on 77 minutes after he left his studs in on Nuno Tavares, who opened the scoring early on with his first Arsenal goal.

Arsenal had been the firm favourites to seal their first Champions League qualification since 2016 but it felt as if their young team had been gripped by nerves. And yet Xhaka would bend the narrative to the force of his will. The