Confirmed XI: Arsenal v United – Ronaldo, McTominay & Varane return, Fernandes captain

United need to get a good result today, Arsenal in good form so it won't be easy

Manchester United will travel to face Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday afternoon in the Premier League. Fresh from their humiliation of a 4-0 defeat to Liverpool on Tuesday evening, Ralf Rangnick’s side will need to take on a resurgent Arsenal, who are in much better form.

Granted, Arsenal have won just twice in their last six matches, losing four of them but they have a game in hand over United, which will still be the case after this weekend. Their 4-2 victory over Chelsea was not expected, which still gives United a chance for top four, but not a great one.

United’s match against Liverpool was dire to watch. There was no real fight or urgency and it was not something that we have never seen before – this is a regular occurrence in this team and has happened under five different managers now, suggesting that is it a player problem.

This mentality cannot continue and now that Erik ten Hag has been named as the new United manager, signing a three-year contract, this team os supposed professionals will need to start pulling their weight as I doubt they will be given a multitude of chances, only to keep failing.

Manchester United:

De Gea;

Dalot, Lindelöf, Varane, Telles;

Matić, McTominay;

Elanga, Fernandes (c), Sancho;

Ronaldo

Substitutes:

Henderson; Bailly, Jones, Maguire, Wan-Bissaka; Mata, Lingard, Garnacho; Rashford

Arsenal:

Ramsdale;

Cedric, White, Gabriel, Tavares;

Elneny, Xhaka;

Saka, Ødegaard, Smith Rowe;

Nketiah

Substitutes:

Leno; Holding, Tomiyasu, Swanson; Lokonga, Azeez; Lacazette, Pépé, Martinelli

United and Arsenal have met 59 times in the Premier League. United have won 25 times, drawn 18 times with Arsenal winning 16 times. United have scored 81 goals, winning seven penalties, scoring five. Arsenal have scored 63 goals, winning four penalties, scoring two.

United have kept 17 clean sheets with Arsenal keeping 19. Discipline has been an issue with United players receiving 120 yellow cards and five red cards and Arsenal players being shown 124 yellow cards and four red cards. United need to bounce back from the Liverpool annihilation.

Paddy Sloan, David Herd, Ian Ure, George Graham, Jimmy Rimmer, Brian Kidd, Frank Stapleton, Viv Anderson, Jim Leighton, David Platt, Andy Cole, Mikael Silvestre, Robin van Persie, Danny Welbeck, Henrikh Mkhitarayan and Alexis Sanchez have all played for both clubs.

The most successful of these is Van Persie who helped United to their last Premier League title victory in the final season of Sir Alex Ferguson’s reign of the club. He made 105 appearances for United, scoring 58 goals and 21 assists, winning the trophy that evaded him at Arsenal.

Written by John Walker

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I support Manchester United, the greatest English football team to have ever existed. Bruno Fernandes is the latest in a long line of players with great ability to play for the club. I idolised Bryan Robson, David Beckham, Paul Scholes, and Eric Cantona growing up.