Here's Ian Mills with Three Things We Learned after Manchester United knocked Arsenal out of the FA Cup to cap a bad few days for Gooners everywhere

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Havertz

Another home Cup defeat made for a miserable five days in North London, as injuries mount and our attack continues to fire blanks.

Here are three things that stood out for me, writes Ian Mills.

1 - It felt 1999 all over again –

Gooners of a certain vintage will painfully recall how the defence of our FA Cup ended in dramatic fashion at Villa Park as having fell behind we equalised through a deflected Dennis Bergkamp effort and then after United had their captain, Roy Keane, sent off if felt as if the momentum was with us.

Ray Parlour was brought down in the 90th minute to offer our magnificent Dutchman (and also my favourite player of all time) a chance to take us into another Final.

Schmeichel’s save is painful to this day and ultimately led to United winning the tie with Gigg’s incredible solo goal (albeit our shattered players offered very little in the way of defending).

What could have been a second successive Double instead became a United Treble and we would not win another trophy for a further three years.

This match was eerily similar albeit neither of the current sides are a patch on those tremendous teams from the late 1990’s. After a dull first half, United took an early second half lead through Bruno Fernandes. Dalot was rightly show a second yellow and we quickly equalised via Gabriel’s deflected shot.

We were clearly on top, and Martin Odegaard had a glorious chance to win the tie from the penalty spot yet saw his spot kick well saved by Bayindir. The stand in keeper also twice saved well from Declan Rice before saving Kai Havertz’s penalty as the German became the only player to miss from 12 yards as we made our fourth straight early FA Cup exit.

We have now not reached the fifth round since 2020, a shocking record regardless of the tough draws we have had in this period.

2 - How do you solve a problem like Kai Havertz –

After missing a sitter against Newcastle, he followed this up with a truly diabolical display putting two very presentable chances over the bar and seeing his penalty spot kick saved. It says something about our paucity in attack that the German remains our top scorer on this campaign.

Last season he was starting to really gel with Leandro Trossard however now both are in poor form and there is simply no pressure on Havertz’s place in the team.

3 - Jesus injury adds to a long list –

our Brazilian attacker had to come off in the first half with what looked like a serious knee injury. Reports suggest it could an ACL problem which would end not only this season for him yet also impact the next one.

Jesus’ injury problems have blighted his Arsenal career thus far and I am not optimistic for good news here either. We are now down to the bare bones in attack, Jesus started on the right wing as our third choice given the injuries to Saka and Nwaneri.

Mikel Arteta seemed to hint in his post-match press conference that any potential new additions are out of his hands – a pointed shot across the bows of the Kroenkes.

Our American owners have backed our Spanish boss several times already and they need to spend big this month on our attack if this campaign is not to fall apart completely.