Paul Scholes thinks Manchester United should have copied what Mikel Arteta did at Arsenal
Manchester United are having a difficult start to the season.
Arsenal fans are obviously loving it. Four points from their opening four Premier League games, despite playing two newly promoted sides, Everton and a Manchester derby against ten men.
Michael Carrick completely revamped the midfield this summer after the club made significant attacking additions the previous year. But the defence, remarkably, remains largely unchanged.
Their back four now are the same back four they used in the 2022-23 season, four years ago. That wouldn’t be so bad if they were actually really good, but Diogo Dalot, Harry Maguire, Lisandro Martinez and Luke Shaw wouldn’t even make the Arsenal bench.
Paul Scholes has a clear view on where exactly United have gone wrong, and he can’t help but compare it to what Mikel Arteta did at Arsenal.
Manchester United should’ve rebuilt the defence first like Mikel Arteta did
Speaking on The Good, The Bad & The Football, Scholes said: “What team have you seen win the Premier League without a top-class goalkeeper. Lammens might be that, I don’t know. The jury’s probably still out on that. And then you build from the back four, like the way Arsenal started three or four years ago. You start from the back, of course you do.”
Arteta’s rebuilt the defence and the goalkeeper first. Gabriel was one of the Arsenal manager’s very first signings in 2020, and big money was spent on Ben White and Aaron Ramsdale the summer after.
Arteta strengthened even further, bringing in David Raya, Jurrien Timber and Riccardo Calafiori. The Gunners now have the best defensive unit in Europe, but they wouldn’t be where they are without the goalkeeper, who is arguably Arsenal’s most important player.
They haven’t stopped there either. Last summer’s addition of Piero Hincapie and this year’s arrival of Ezri Konsa have completely solidified Arsenal, with the latter slotting in seamlessly for the injured William Saliba.
United went the other way, though. They spent big on the attack and then overhauled the midfield, but the defence has been left largely as it was.
Whatever you may think of him as a pundit, as an 11-time Premier League champion, Scholes clearly knows what it takes to win it. You build from the back, which is exactly what Arsenal did.