Ten Hag also wins third exhibition game with Manchester United: convincing victory over Arsenal with basic debutant Timber | Foreign football

Earlier in the pre-season, United had already beaten Leeds United (2-0) in Oslo and from Olympique Lyon (1-0) in Edinburgh, by a nice volley from Donny van de Beek. In the run-up to the start of the competition on Monday 14 August, the English record champion will play five more practice matches.

Jurrien Timber made his basic debut for Arsenal against Manchester United, after he already left a great first impression last Thursday when he came on in the 65th minute in the game against the MLS All-Stars (5-0 win) at Audi Field in Washington. Timber again played at right back, but with the clear assignment to move a lot to midfield to create a majority there, as Pep Guardiola (tutor of Arsenal coach Mikel Arteta) did with John Stones in recent months.

However, Manchester United were the dominant side in the first half at the MetLife Stadium, where all 82,000 seats were occupied in the duel between the English powers. After half an hour, Bruno Fernandes, the new captain of United, scored with a left-footed shot. In addition, Arsenal goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale did not look very good, although there was a nasty bounce in the shot of United’s Portuguese captain.

Seven minutes later, Brazilian defender Gabriel Magalhães made a mistake by missing the ball completely in midfield. The lightning-fast Jadon Sancho gratefully benefited from that. He still had the option to serve the fast Alejandro Garnacho by putting the ball aside, but Sancho shot with conviction into the roof of the goal: 2-0.

As so often in practice duels, there were irritations about the hardness in the duels. Shortly before the break, Lisandro Martínez was booked after he treated Bukayo Saka with a big blow after he had won the ball. That action by the Argentinian defender caused anger among the players and staff of Arsenal, but Erik ten Hag had little understanding for that.

He got angry with the fourth official after the half-time signal and had to be removed by the Portuguese playmaker Bruno Fernandes, his new captain. “We don’t play friendly games”, Ten Hag had recorded on Friday and Manchester United repeated that message on Twitter at halftime. Ten Hag made ten substitutions at halftime and then he was forced to replace Amad Diallo, but Donny van de Beek remained on the bench for the entire match despite his winning goal against Olympique Lyon this time.

After 70 minutes, there was also a yellow card for Harry Maguire after a somewhat light foul on Arsenal captain Martin Ødegaard. At United, the captain’s armband was worn in the second half by Casemiro, the experienced Brazilian midfielder who joined from Real Madrid last year. The only player who was allowed to stand for the entire game at United was 37-year-old goalkeeper Tom Heaton. Taken over from Inter last week Andre Onana has already joined the selection, but has to wait a while for his debut for United.

Arsenal and Manchester United will meet again on Sunday, September 3, at the Emirates Stadium in London in the fourth round of the Premier League. Arsenal topped the table from round 3 to 33 last season, but eventually collapsed and saw Manchester City win their fifth league title in six seasons with five points more.

Manchester United finished third last season, fourteen points short of City and nine short of Arsenal. Both clubs will therefore also be active in the Champions League next season, for Arsenal this will be the first time since the 2016/2017 season.