There was concern surrounding The Gunners North London derby due to a couple of pivotal key players missing.
Declan Rice was suspended following his sending off versus Brighton before the International Break, and captain Martin Odegaard picked up an ankle injury during the break for Norway inconveniently .
Rice will be available for Arsenals next Premier League test against Manchester City next Sunday, however, no one knows how long Odegaard will be out for but FOOTBALL TALK mentioned he’ll be out of action for at least 21 days.
The two players have formed one of the greatest midfield partnerships currently and The Gunners have thoroughly relied upon it at times.
Both of them together flexed their attacking and defensive might last season, which is still relied upon. At the end of the last Premier League campaign Odegaard picked up more assists (10) than any other Gunner and Rice performed the most tackles (83) in the side.
Despite the two being heavily relied upon to form Mikel Arteta’s middle of the park, it coped without them during the much anticipated match against arch rivals Spurs.
Odegaard and Rice were both replaced by Leandro Trossard and Jorginho who would go onto help Arsenal beat Spurs 1-0 with Gabriel heading in the winner ferociously from a corner.
Although Jorginho was on the winning side not all fans on X were convinced by the Italians performance and he was harsly criticised on Twitter.
There were also other comments on the social media platform which hinted towards disapproval of Arteta’s decision to choose the midfielder, but at the end of the day he was always going to be compared against two of the best midfielders in the world, who are an integral part of Arsenals title chasing team.
Unfortunately his ratings by the media weren’t much better either.
The Evening Standard handed him 6/10 which was one of the lowest scores in the whole team and described his performance stating he “struggled to control the game, but worked tirelessly off it.”
Trossard was on a similar level according to the newspaper who also gave him a 6/10 rating. They said he “started as a striker as Arteta mixed up his formation. Played through a couple of dangerous balls for Havertz. Busy off the ball.”
Sky was more impressed on the other hand by the two replacements handing them both 7/10 ratings.
However after 90 minutes Arsenal proved they were capable at clinching glory in the big matches without two of their midfield diamonds.
Liam Harding
ADMIN COMMENT
So here are some simple rules which I must insist commenters follow….
You agree not to give any personal abuse to other Arsenal fans. Everyone is allowed to hold their own opinions even if you disagree with them. It COSTS NOTHING TO BE POLITE TO OTHER ARSENAL FANS.
CALLING ALL ARSENAL FANS! Anyone who would like to contribute an Article or Video opinion piece on JustArsenal, please contact us through this link…
I kept telling fans for many months that the minute Arsenal introduce a solid left back, Gabriel Magahlase will be as solid as the rock of Gibraltar.
The Brazilian more often than not is left on his own to face the music in Arsenal defense,
Now am not sure who’s game the Italian is going to get?
That got to be the millón dollar question
True. We didn’t need them because, in part anyway, Sp*rs were poor all things considered. I’m not sure Arsenal would fare quite so confidently without the pair of them against more determined/skilful opposition though. I’d prefer to see them both back when we face City, for example.
Yeah, Spurs were wasteful and should really have taken a first half lead. I think it’s a bit cocky of Liam to say we didn’t need Ødegaard & Rice as they had their own injury issues, although in the event we did well without them.
I’m being a bit unfair to Liam, as it wasn’t him who said we “didn’t need Ødegaard and Rice”, but those cursed headline writers again.
AdPat will be after you Jax😂
As you said Sue😱
Cursed jax???
A bit harsh amigo….
I’m sorry but its my job…..
It’s comforting to know that the replacements were good enough on the day. We’ve moaned about lack of depth in the past so a win is a win and 3 points in the bag.
obviously we need them, the number of times the spuds threatened our goal suggests otherwise. If it were a more clinical team we might have lost the tie.
A key thing about changing history is that (if you could do that) everything after the event you change would also change.
As the game went, Arsenal shut up shop at 1-0 up, that wouldn’t happen if the scoreline were different, which means if Spurs take one of their chances, then Arsenal would play differently… and we then have no idea what the final outcome might be in that scenario.
Eloquently put Neutral