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New Delhi: Arsenal continued their recent dominance over Manchester United with a 1-0 win in their English Premier League opener on Sunday.

Riccardo Calafiori headed in Declan Rice’s corner at the back post in the 13th minute to give Gunners a winning start to their 2025-26 campaign, and notch up their fifth win in six encounters against United.

At their home of Old Trafford, Man United created enough scoring moments but were undone by poor decision making and finishing as their campign began on a disappointing note after finishing 15th last season.

Arsenal fielded multiple new faces, but Mikel Arteta’s visiting team proved they remain clinical from set pieces with Calafiori nodding in in the early stages.

Arsenal’s William Saliba backed into Turkish keeper Bayindir, whose feeble alltempt to bat away the ball with one hand proved futile as Calafiori scored from an easy close-range header.

Apart from that mistake, United were otherwise the better team, with new signings Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo and Patrick Dorgu spurning presentable chances.

With every missed chance, frustration increased as United pinned back Arsenal for most of the second period and kept keeper David Raya busy, forcing him into acrobatic saves to stop Mbeumo’s strong header.

Arsenal have now scored 31 league goals from corners since the start of the 2023-24 season, 11 more than any other team, and three of their last four league goals against United have come from corner kicks, making them legitimate set-piece specialists.

But far more crucially, they picked up a vital three points, showing experience to win a closely-fought game in which they were not at their best for most periods.

While Man Utd were beaten, there will surely take heart from their much-improved performance that points to this season being more successful all around than the last but they have to quickly regroup from the opening-day defeat.