Arsene Wenger suffers another defeat on his farewell tour, and it may be the most wretched of them all

If Manchester United vs Arsenal usually provokes nostalgia, this provoked insomnia

(Getty)

The defence of this match would be that neither side really cared what happened.

But in a fixture that was all about the names – Arsene Wenger! Sir Alex Ferguson! Paul Pogba! Konstantinos Mavropanos! – this was a game of football that was completely anonymous.

Manchester United are an effective football team but not an especially dominant one. That clearly extends to games played at the pace of a pre-season friendly against an XI full of fringe players and kids. They should have brushed aside a faceless Arsenal team but failed comprehensively while Arsenal, on a day we could have been lamenting Wenger’s departure, put in another pitiful performance on this wretched farewell tour.

If Manchester United vs Arsenal usually provokes nostalgia, this provoked insomnia. The memory of these games is one of hot-blooded battles with titles on the lines but in the absence of this game having any meaning, the least we could have hoped for was some feist or fight. Both were absent in a fixture played out in front of a largely silent crowd.

A game that started with Fergie on the pitch was decided in Fergie time (Getty)

Wenger’s decision to throw some youngsters and fringe players into the fray at Old Trafford was understandable given the Europa League semi-final second leg is on Thursday but the reaction you’d be hoping for was one of energy and unpredictability, of players Man United don’t know doing things they didn’t expect.

In the end, Arsenal’s best moment of the afternoon was a player Man United knew very well doing something they knew all too well that he was capable of. Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s strike seemed to beat David De Gea in slow motion, perhaps a fitting tribute to the pedestrian pace of this game. That the Armenian didn’t celebrate out of respect for all those successful years spent defending the colours of the Old Trafford club was a minor detail but in a game so devoid of incident it might well creep into the top five most interesting moments.

As the second half snored along, Sky’s cameras panned to the director’s box and caught Bryan Robson yawning, the perfect visual representation of this waste of an afternoon.

Mkhitaryan scored for Arsenal, but didn't want to celebrate (Getty)

Manchester United looked to have won this game with their second ricochet goal of the day, only for it to be ruled out for offside. But on this unfunniest of days, they would have the last laugh as Marouane Fellaini leapt with three Arsenal defenders and the ball bounced backwards of his head to secure victory in stoppage time.

Wenger departs Old Trafford, a stadium of many memories, with a very forgettable defeat.

A damp squib of a game that meant more in Burnley than it did in Trafford or north London, this match was like Arsenal away from home in 2018 - pointless.