ARSENAL: Sluggish display offers a healthy dose of reality

If the weekend’s opening salvoes served one purpose, it was to remind us that we’re slaves to such a fickle, footballing mistress.

Although Man United might have appeared decidedly lightweight in Louis van Gaal’s baptism of fire defeat to the Swans in Saturday’s early encounter, and this might well result in a rash of last-minute spending on the sort of experienced star names that might lend his immature squad a little more Galactico gravitas, it could’ve been an entirely different story.

If Wayne Rooney’s wonderful free-kick had curled a couple more inches into the onion bag instead of walloping the crossbar, the dynamic of today’s analysis would have been so different.