If Arsenal fans craved something different more than anything else then they certainly got that at Old Trafford on Wednesday night.

It has been a long time since Arsenal left Manchester feeling disappointed that they only collected a point. All too often they returned home with nothing other than a new humiliation to process.

But that wasn’t the case on Wednesday night.

Here are a few other things that stood out during and after the game…

Jose Mourinho is just Tony Pulis with money

It had long been suspected that Jose Mourinho was just Tony Pulis with money.

Give the former Orc-in-Chief the same talent that Mourinho has had at his disposal over the years, especially recently, and you’d likely see the same results.

On Wednesday night Mourinho had two options.

He could pit his stars against the only team in Europe with a 20-game unbeaten streak and show us all that he has the ability to play the progressive football he tells us he’s capable of or he could revert to the darkest of arts of which he has been king for so long.

Unsurprisingly, he chose the latter.

He benched his biggest names and set about playing the anti-football that is his stock-in-trade.

One might even argue that Tony Pulis would have got the win.

Andre Marriner makes Mike Dean look good

Although we all know what Mike Dean is capable off, you never get the feeling that a player’s safety is at risk during a game.

Sure, he’ll make inexplicable calls, but he doesn’t let dangerous tackles go unchecked because he knows that those sort of incidents only tend to escalate until someone has to leave the pitch with a serious injury.

Andre Marriner seems to have no such concerns.

It might be an idea for someone to track serious injuries in games alongside which referees were in charge, to see if there is a connection.

I’d be surprised if there wasn’t.

Jose Mourinho’s tactics were a sign of respect to Unai Emery

It might not have felt like it at the time as United players ran around the pitch kicking lumps out of Arsenal players, but it was a sign of respect from Jose Mourinho who knew his side couldn’t possibly hope to compete with Arsenal in a game of football.

He isn’t the first Manchester United manager to resort to that sort of tactic, of course.

We saw it all too often against United, especially involving latter-era Wenger teams.

And let’s not forget it was the only way they could stop Arsenal’s 49-game unbeaten run.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM747L9Wf8M&t=160s

This time they failed, in part because Jose Mourinho is a shadow of Sir Alex Ferguson, even in his wettest dreams.

But mostly it was because this Arsenal side will not be bullied like they were under Wenger.

The FA are a joke

Imagine, if you will, that Marouane Fellaini had grabbed a chunk of Lucas Torreira’s hair and dragged him back. At worst he would have received a yellow but most would have called for a red.

You simply cannot go around a football pitch pulling a player by his hair, no matter what length it is.

Andre Marriner, in his infinite wisdom, gave a freekick but issued no card. Because he gave a freekick the FA can do nothing about it.

It’s the same story with the red Marcus Rojo should have got for his ‘challenge’ on Matteo Guendouzi in the box. Freekick given, no chance to deal with the matter properly retroactively.

In the same category, I would include the inability to appeal yellow cards.

While most times yellows are incidental beyond controlling a player’s behaviour during the game, the totting up process means players end up with bans – like Granit Xhaka who was unavailable for Wednesday night because he’d picked up five bookings.