So Arsenal reserves came to impress Arsene Wenger, but the Championship side Reading had a little flurry at the start. In fact they had 75% possession in the first 15 minutes! Slowly but surely the Gunners took control but the pace was a little pedestrian but the passing was mostly accurate.
Oxlade-Chamberlain and Iwobi looked to be trying hard, although the Ox had a few wild shots and an incredibly bad cross from a free kick at one point. But he kept on tryin, and although Reading came close a couple of times with deflections, Alex finally put us ahead with a well-placed shot after 33 minutes.
So we went into half time with a narrow lead, and we were narrowly the better side, but with all our missed opportunities I would hardly say we had been dominant, although I’d say that Iwobi performed the best…
The Gunners flew out of the box in the second half with Lucas, mostly, and the Ox getting in amongst it, but not quite getting the final useful touch, and why on Earth is the Ox taking all the corners (badly!). Also the first 15 minutes has seen our captain on the night, Kieran Gibbs, giving the ball to Reading more often than his team-mates, even nearly gifting them a free shot on goal…
There was one funny moment when Jenkinson went down like he had been shot, but when the ref didn’t stop the game Jenks sprinted back to his goal and cut off a cross in the six yard box. Two minutes later Martinez made a classy save from the first Reading sub, Yann Kermorgant, who had replaced Callum Harriott.
This seemed to give the away team a burst of confidence and they started attacking Martinez’s goal but to no avail. This persuaded Wenger to put Giroud on to replace Jeff for the last 25 minutes. The longer Olivier doesn’t start, the longer his beard gets! The news came through that Spurs had gone 2-0 down at Liverpool was worth a cheer at least.
Arsenal nearly got their second themselves with the ball bouncing around in the Reading goal after a great save from a Giroud header, but the Royals managed somehow to keep it out. Lucas Perez was then replaced by Willock thanks to a dodgy foul, and straight afterwards Al-Habsi produced another fine save from Oxlade-Chamberlain.
It looked like Reading were tiring and Arsenal started to assert their superiority, and sure enough, after a tricky run by Giroud down the wing, the Ox scored again with a nice deflection when the ball finally came out of the box. Arsenal finally got the cushion they deserved.
With 10 minutes to go, Oxlade-Chamberlain was given a cheer hen he was replaced by the young Zelalem. The game petered out a bit after that as Arsenal seemed to sit back and be happy with the score,but there was still time for Martinez to pull off another good save from a Reading free kick just outside the box.
Going into three minutes added time, Elneny had a wild shot well over the bar, and Giroud seemed keen to nick one, but it is all over, and it is a fair result for the Arsenal reserves….
OX now has 5 goals for this season. That’s his highest goal tally he’s ever had with us. And it’s October! Hopefully he can continue scoring few goals here and there.
Lucas is hungry! Hopefully he’s not out for long. Oh and how we missed Giroud.. That header, the assist and hold up play, YES, HOLD UP PLAY. We’ve missed that too.
COYG!
Oh and I think Gibbs has earned himself a starting place in the Premier League, at least for some odd matches. It’s not like Monreal has been at his best and Gibbs has done nothing wrong.
Always happy with a win, any win
Was nervous for most of the match only being 1-0 up
But OX’s 2nd goal relaxed me
Sunderland away next
Happy evening 🙂
A nervous Arsenal fan, what? Are you sure? How is that possible? LOL, if it’s not nervous, then it’s not an Arsenal match am I right!
Stop Flirting. For all we know she might be a guy who wants to post sesitive stuff and not get slated by other blokes in here..
You call that flirting? If so then mate your game is waaaayyy off!
Nice one.
I am happy for the fringe players that put in a good shift today.
On to the next game please.
Well done fellas. Ya look hella rusty, but you still looked “TIGHT….
So Moore takes out Giroud with a malicious tackle from behind and gets away with just a yellow, yet Xhaka got a straight red and 3 match ban ??
Yeah, my thoughts exactly. The refereeing in England is mentally challenged.
Good win, competition like these are good for our large squad , senior and junior players can get a lot of game time, which will put them in the eyes of the manager and also for there own development.
It is highly unlikely that some players will be involve in the league matches or the champion league matches therefore the longer these cup games on on the better
As things stand we could be set to have 27 of our 29 man squad available for spurs, Although it now looks highly likely that Debuchy and Sanogo are no longer in the managers plans, unless of course they too, like Mertesacker and welbeck are injured?
good win, I hope now that Wenger’s favourite son is back he won’t put him in the starting XI and ruin the new found fluency in play between Alexis,Ozil,Iwobi,Walcott.
Giroud is a backup player that should come in, against teams that park the bus.
Not a bad game, and certainly a much welcomed result after a horror show on Saturday. Positives: Ox (he could have had at least a hat-trick, but it’s hard to complain when someone scores 2 goals), Lucas (hopefully out for not long), Giroud (I missed the big guy, and he showed some real quality and hunger today), Gibbs, Jenks. Well, I was actually pretty happy with all of our starting XI, with the exception of… Negatives: Gabriel. The guy just doesn’t have it. His positioning, reading of the game, etc. are not of high quality. I think Holding should be promoted to the first team at his expense. And we might think about selling him in the summer. Just my 2 cents…
My thoughts:
-Ox finally stepping up, best player on the pitch today, and has learned to finish chances. Can he do it in EPL though? Most his goals against the smaller sides we’ve faced this season
-Iwobi needs to find his shooting boots if he wants to stay in XI. At least put away the simple chances. All around play pretty good today though
-Jenksinson very good after being away for a couple of years, good too him back
-Reine-Adelaide, all tricks, goes nowhere. Seems to be very selfish and play by himself. Maitland-Niles the most impressive youngster today
-Emi Martinez a great 3rd choice keeper to have
-Another calm and mature display from Rob Holding
Looking forward to the weekend 😀
also having Giroud back is so important, great display from him today
I agree with you I was most impressed with Maitland Niles of all the youngsters.
So happy and relieved with the win well done Arsenal and hope lucas is ok on with sunderland next
Please don’t get me wrong. I enjoy every win, including this one. But the team played with many inaccurate passes, bad crosses and bad first touches in the first half. I know the players are rusty, because they are reserved players, lacking of game time. But the team management (the manager, the staffs, director of football, etc) should be able to guide these players, after all these years. Always trying to play with high ball possession and slow tempo, but rarely shows cohesive teamwork. They must see Barcelona reserves, rusty players but play with the first squad’s system. They need to learn more from the big teams in Spain.
This game left me all nervous and cursing at my TV throughout. Too many changes always lead to a very disjointed performance. I am happy we worn but I will be lying if I said I enjoyed the game. This was our worst performance this season and a far cry from our typical first team performance.