Gabriel Jesus says played ‘so much better’ than despite suffering a 3-1 defeat at Old Trafford.
New United signing Antony scored on his Premier League debut and Marcus Rashford bagged a brace as Erik ten Hag’s side ended Arsenal’s perfect start to the season on Sunday.
Former winger Antony opened the scoring shortly after Arsenal had a Gabriel Martinelli goal ruled out by VAR for a controversial foul on Christian Eriksen.
Despite going behind, Arsenal continued to trouble United and equalised on the hour mark through Bukayo Saka.
But Manchester United quickly restored their lead as Rashford burst through on goal and beat Aaron Ramsdale, and the England forward effectively put the game to bed ten minutes later with his second of the afternoon.
While the defeat ended Arsenal’s 100% start to the season, Mikel Arteta’s side remain top of the Premier League, while United climb to fifth after securing their fourth win in a row.
Arsenal striker Jesus said: ‘The feeling is frustration, because we control the game and were better than them… and then we just concede.
‘But now is the time to learn from it and improve. We are doing so well this season, but there are still things to improve for everyone.
‘Everyone is together and we stick together until the end, and that’s it. We came to play against a strong opponent and it’s always hard, it’s the Premier League. So we are not happy, because we played so much better [than United].
‘But that’s football, if you don’t go there and kill, you are going to have a big problem – and that’s what happened today.’
Arsenal’s £50m summer signing, who spent five years at Manchester City, added: ‘If you look at our team, you can see we are still young. It is the youngest team in the League, in the toughest league of the world.
‘We are playing so good and then we play against an opponent, who is young as well, but we have to learn from it.
‘We have to, like I said, stick together and improve as a team and don’t think about this one. This one is gone.
‘We have to learn and then do better next time. We are playing so well, so good, but no one is perfect. No team in the world is perfect and we have to play to try to score and don’t concede.
‘That’s football and we are doing this, but sometimes the opponent has quality as well. They come and they can score. I think now it is our challenge to improve a lot of things and come back strong.’
Gunners boss Arteta was also keen to take the positives from Arsenal’s defeat at Manchester United but said his side were taught a ‘big lesson’.
‘The game was there for the taking,’ he said. ‘We haven’t won it because we lacked some discipline in some moments and we weren’t ruthless enough in front of goal.
‘If we play with more courage we win the game. It is a big lesson – if you want to win here you have to do everything so right.’
Ten Hag, meanwhile, claimed United’s ‘team spirit’ was crucial as they continued their revival and closed to within one point of the top four.
‘We are happy and satisfied with the win, also the performance against a really good team – they played really well,’ he said.
‘The spirit from this team, they can deal with setbacks so we did, it is really great and shows your mentality – we have really improved on that.
‘We have the right characters and now it is about cooperation, deal with set backs but also improve – we have to stay calm, stay composed and play our game.
‘You can see that Arsenal are more together, more routines – but our team spirit brings us the win.’
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