Gripped by stultifying torpor in the sultry heat of a Sunday afternoon, Arsenal played like a team waiting for a storm to break at Old Trafford and wash away their dreams of winning a first Premier League title for 20 years.
Drained of energy and innovation, they courted disaster time after time against one of the weakest Manchester United line-ups that the club has fielded in recent years.
The air got heavier and the sense of foreboding, the sense that their challenge would effectively end here, grew with it.
And when the heavens finally opened in the dying minutes and thunder rent the air and lightning crackled across the sky and the rain fell in stair-rods, testing that notoriously leaky stadium roof, beating down on it like thousands of angry fists, it presaged not the end of Arsenal’s challenge but their deliverance from danger.
The fight is still on. The battle is still joined. Arsenal are taking this title fight right down to the wire. Their victory here means that their battle with Manchester City will be decided on the final day of the Premier League season next Sunday.
Leandro Trossard (right) put Arsenal ahead with his 12th Premier League goal of the season
The Belgian tucked away Kai Havertz’s low cross after the visitors regained possession
Casemiro was at fault for the concession as his deep position allowed Havertz to receive the ball in an onside position
City are still the hot favourites but this Arsenal win means Pep Guardiola’s side will likely have to win at Spurs on Tuesday evening and again at home to West Ham on Sunday to deny them. Arsenal, who are a point clear of City, having played a game more, will contest their final match against Everton at the Emirates with one eye on the Etihad.
The final whistle was met by an almighty roar of relief and triumph from the away end at Old Trafford as the rain turned the touchlines into rivers and the smart linen suit of United’s manager, Erik ten Hag, clung to him in the downpour.
This was not a triumph for Arsenal like the famous win here in 2002 when Sylvain Wiltord clinched the title and a sign appeared anointing the away enclosure as the ‘Champions’ Section’.
That was a triumph without qualification. This was a stepping stone on the way to a goal they fear will elude them at the last.
United salvaged some pride after their hapless performance against Crystal Palace last week but it could not disguise the fact they are on course for their worst league showing since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013.
It is still hard to shake the feeling that this is a club heading backwards. It is equally hard to see a future for Ten Hag at the club once the curtain comes down on the FA Cup Final.
The unlikely prospect of United staging some sort of an upset took a huge hit an hour before the kick-off when the teamsheets were released. United’s line-up looked so threadbare that it provoked a kind of sadness when it was distributed in the press room. Had it really come to this? Is this really all United have to offer?
Injuries played a part, of course, but that team sheet read like the wages of sin. It read like the price a club – and, yes, Ten Hag, too – is paying for a decade of mismanagement and shocking recruitment under the Glazers.
Labour leader and Arsenal fan Sir Keir Starmer was in attendance for the heavyweight Old Trafford clash
United enjoyed positive spells in the first half and could have gone ahead when Rasmus Hojlund was through on goal but he slipped while taking the shot
Mikel Arteta cut a tense figure as his side were made to work for their result on Sunday afternoon
Amad Diallo (right) impressed for the visitors after coming into the starting XI for the clash
It looked like a mid-table side, at best. It looked like a team that had absolutely no chance of upsetting a side that has grown as much as Arsenal has grown while United have been allowed to stagnate and decline.
United did create the first chance of the game. But they wasted it. Scott McTominay, their skipper, dispossessed Thomas Partey on the edge of the Arsenal box and the ball fell to Rasmus Hojlund. Hojlund had time and space to shoot but he slipped at the crucial moment and his shot dribbled wide.
United were actually the better team for the first 20 minutes. Then Arsenal scored. Ten Hag could not claim that he had not been forewarned of the shortcomings of Casemiro at centre half after his disastrous performance against Crystal Palace there last week but now it cost his team again.
Arsenal mopped up an aimless ball from Andre Onana and, with Casemiro lagging yards behind the rest of the United defence, Ben White played a clever pass to Kai Havertz in space on the right.
Havertz advanced and, as Casemiro ball-watched, Trossard stole in between him and Aaron Wan-Bissaka and clipped Havertz’s cross into the net.
Arsenal’s strike meant United had conceded 82 goals across all competitions this season, the most in a single campaign since 1970-71, more even than in 1973-74 when they were relegated from the old First Division.
And yet there were times throughout the rest of the half when United seemed to be dragging Arsenal down to their level. The game settled back into a pattern where the home team were playing the better football. Amad Diallo, in particular, stood out. He has not featured much for United until now. In this dire climate, that may be a bonus.
Arsenal’s lethargy persisted in the second half. They could not shake it off. They looked a long way from the fluent unit that swept so many teams aside this season. They sat back, soaking up United pressure, confident that their opponents did not possess the wit to make their possession pay.
Now and again, they gave United openings. Alejandro Garnacho cut inside Ben White after an hour and was confronted with the freedom of Old Trafford as he advanced to the edge of the area. He could have taken the ball further on but he tried to curl a shot into the top corner and got it horribly wrong. It sailed high and wide.
Still Arsenal struggled to inject any urgency into their play. Twenty minutes from the end, United substitute Antony nicked the ball away from Takehiro Tomiyasu inside the Arsenal half and ran at the retreating defence. He miscued his shot, too. Arsenal, though, were courting disaster.
Alejandro Garnacho (middle) had the beating of Ben White (left) for much of the second-half but the United’s winger’s end product was often found wanting
Andre Onana made a few telling contributions after the break to keep United in the contest
Arsenal have now kept seven clean sheets in their last eight Premier League games to take their tally this season to 11
Erik ten Hag’s side now find themselves three points adrift of Newcastle and Chelsea in the final European spots
Next, Bukayo Saka, who had had a poor game, gave the ball away cheaply to Garnacho, who set off on another mazy run towards goal. Garnacho twisted and turned but then hit his shot into the side netting from 12 yards out.
Arsenal conjured a rare chance when substitute Gabriel Martinelli burst down the left, cut inside Wan-Bissaka and weaved across the area. He lifted his shot high towards the roof of the net but Onana produced a fine save to tip it over the bar.
Then the rains came. The result was the only thing that mattered. Everything else was washed away in the tempest.
