Arsenal academy graduates Emile Smith Rowe and Bukayo Saka have sealed the 2-1 victory against Brentford.
It was a bright start for the Gunners, who did look to have broken the deadlock early into the match, with Ben White and Saka coming close. We then thought we could be set to be given a penalty, only for VAR to fail to do their job, only for Alexandre Lacazette to then have the ball in the net and be ruled offside all inside the opening 15 minutes of play.
The game did slow down after that however, with very little shooting opportunities emerging in the remainder of the half, but it didn’t take long after the break for the deadlock to be broken.
It was a neat run by Smith Rowe to break forward, and after carrying the ball into the box, it was the overlapping run of his team-mate which opened up the space for him to cut across goal and place his effort beyond the goalkeeper, who got a slight touch but not enough.
We continued to push forward in search of a second, but it wasn’t until just before the 80th minute that Bukayo Saka added to our tally to make it 2-0 after placing his effort into the side netter from just outside the box.
Brentford clinched a late consolation goal in injury time, despite initially being ruled out for offside, but it was a deserved three points for Arsenal, who close the gap on West Ham and Man United whilst still having played less fixtures.
Patrick
Our passing variations and qualities in the first half are still far behind Man City’s/ Liverpool’s, luckily our Hale End products made some nice goals in the second half. It was a good team effort overall, but we need to be sharper when Wolves visit us
You can’t seize to amaze me
Always something to rant about
Just wanna to point out our main weakness, as compared to the best two teams in EPL
Very true, we are paying 180k/week just for disappointments. shame, puri own have to teach those multimillionaires how and when to put ghe ball in the net. I’d prefer ESR out wide over Gabs
Seriously??
Yet we played city out of the park when they came visiting
Please give it a rest
You know nothing more than we all know
Death right foot, Inverter cf, Inverter cb, towering cf etc
Bro. Give it a rest
If you don’t like his comments don’t read them! Simple!
GAI.. keep it up 🙂
😄
I always read your comments GAI and I do love them
Right?
Please sue don’t encourage him.
Well said GAI
Gai there is no comparison with this two teams in anyway. The quality of their players and team not on the same level. So cut them some slack they are giving their best and they will get better with more additions and a good CF next season. For now 3 points in the bag.
Gai that’s PeP and Klop in charge no basis for comparison please.
City equalise 🙂
Now Spurs win it at the death 🙁
And do the double over City… 😡
Superb display against 11 defenders. Odegaard was an absolute joy to watch and Xhaka and Partey were superb in midfield. But all would have come to nothing if our two kids had not scored two great goals, bless them!
Only weak points were Lacazette, and Cedric’s poor crossing.
Overall a pleasure to watch such great attitude, effort and team spirit.
Gabriel MotM for me.
Agree that Lacazette is looking bereft of confidence but, having said that, he played a part in both goals and fought hard – certainly no sign he is planning to mail it in for the rest of the season.
Interesting side show with Xhaka refusing to take the captain’s badge and, while I too enjoyed Odegaaed’s overall play, he should have done better with both his chances.
I think it’s about time martineli is tried for the cf role.
I was listening to Tony Cascarino on Talksport this morning. It was a conversation about the merits of Milner who as a senior pro is the perfect senior pro and why getting shot of the big egos was so important at Arsenal. Our younger players epitomise everything you said in your post Desire, spirit, teamwork and the right attitude. It goes a long way
We were denied 2 blatant penalties, once again.
I’m getting pissed about the total incompetence of these fat slag refs
The referee made correct decisions. Our attackers shouldn’t have flopped around on little touches
Just tell me u re joking with this comment
🤯… With the two very obvious penalties we were denied, laca’s goal cancelled and handball in the build up to Brentford goal…. I’m sure he was either sleeping during the match or watching the back of his TV
How is Cedric’s shot that hit a Brentford player’s hand not a penalty?
Annoying comment 😒
The elbow was retracting, so it was unintentional
Intentions are being considered? Really. Nobody really intends to touch a ball in the box. The argument should be the direction of the hit shot( was on target). And the distance of the ball to the hand ,which made it a clear penalty.
A handball in the box is almost always unintentional. Intent is usually irrelevant. The issue is whether the arm was in an unnatural position. In this case I’d say it was a 50/50 call.
Sorry GAI that’s not the rule. A handball, if outside the body, can only be overlooked if the hand “was in a natural position”. It wasn’t. Pepe was awarded a penalty earlier in the season for something almost identical.
must admit GAI., I’m enjoying this newfound realistic version of yourself…so long as we continue to needlessly flop around the pitch and bark at the ref for penalty calls on a regular basis, we’re not going to properly address the real problems, which is our middling tactics and piss-poor finishing…this game should have been a drubbing on the scoreboard and not on the stats sheet, as our opponents clearly came with 1 point in mind…nothing wrong with having 3 points in the bag, but from an “eye test” perspective we’re fractionally better than those 5-6 positions below us in the table…our saving grace, top 4 wise, is the fact that many of our closest competitors appear to be in a similar boat offensively, as the Wolves are rather anemic, Moyes has his boys playing negative football again and neither the Spurs nor United are scaring anyone presently…we should have brought in another option up top, who better fits this cross-heavy approach, which is why I spoke of Weghorst on multiple occasions, either as a loan or for the somewhat remarkably low fee of 12M
Spurs? They are now learning how to bite.
After being mauled with teeth by the Wolves the last time, they now use the teeth. They just bit the Cityzens – in the butt.
that’s called recency bias, which btw doesn’t help us whatsoever, unless you’re secretly a Spuds fan, which would explain a lot
DaJuhi, what else can Arsenal expect from John Moss?
If those challenges had been made by Arsenal, how would the decisions have gone?
Good team effort,
Great Goals,
Nice to see everybody put amazing effort,
Lacazeth?
All the kids put massive shift in.
Let’s reload and wait for the Wolves pack next.
Saka and ESR and with Willock doing us a favour – Hale End FC 👌
Bloody hell, come on City ☹
spurs winning at City!
Thankfully only early on. Time for City to redeem themselves 🙏🙏🙏
Angus
I should have kept my thoughts to myself
🤬
Y re d ref bias to Arsenal. Two blatant pen nd not even one was given
Top 4 is looking very interesting after our win and WestHam dropping more points. Few games in hand over all the teams above us who we are battling with. Win our games in hand and 2 points behind Chelsea!
Keep up the momentum lads, only downside we should’ve had more goals for that goal difference, may come Into play come May
Credit for persistence, and two top class goals. We really miss a sharp goalscoring forward. Lacazette is strong but not a danger. So good to see Smith Rowe & Saka show their worth. Glad Martinelli will be back…maybe in the centre.
Beautiful football from our lads and total control from start to finish. But I guess there will be some that will look for negatives. I really enjoyed the game and hope to see more of the same in the future.
Nice 3points,hoping for same against wolves come midweek…COYG
A good 3 points and my judgement is soiled a bit by a poor feed on the Internet. ESR and Saka looked like the catylist of this win, i am struggling to see what Odergaard bring to the no10 shirt and Xhaka was a disgrace. Comfortable for the defence until the last 15 minutes. What worries me is how we can go from Comfortable in any one game to sloppy and disjointed, so easily. 2-1 flattered Brentford and we were never in trouble but it was never a 2-1 game. Points are the biggest thing and we got the three, move onto the next game.
Odegaard was good today tbh. Looks like a leader on the pitch, picks the right passes most of the time. He’s not quite as incisive as I’d like but he is worth his place.
Yeah I thought odegaard was good today at least for the first half. Tbh they all were safe for lacazette. Brentford seemingly came for 1 point. They’ve lost momentum from the way they played earlier in the season and I agree 2-1 was a score that flattered Brentford.
Davi, I concur on Odegaard; Reggie is harsh and in my view unfair in his assessment.
You should find a much better feed or maybe new glasses because Ode was one of the best players on the pitch and had a great game.
Agree Mortivor And Davi and I can’t understand the comment about Xhaka either. I can only assume it was about the armband, which was Mr Invisible’s (Nketiah) mistake as Tierney is the stand in skipper. I though Xhaka played well and Odegaard, shooting aside, was amazing (and also was the most energetic player on the pitch). I always respect Reggie’s match comments so am putting it down to his connection!
Yeah I guess it was about armband issue because Granit was really good today. He and Partey totaly dominated the midfield.
Urgh bad feed or not, Partey dominated midfield and Odergaard is just a stroller. Odergaard brings little to the table except linking play. His actual impact is negligible. Our intention is poor and he is supposed to provide that.
Invention is poor.
Look at Conte go against City.. amazing. Can he hold on?
I didn’t think it was a penalty, not even close.
Good revenge by Spurs on City for our painful defeat to them. Happy they’ve finally tasted defeat in a similar fashion to ours with a late winning goal, but wished it was to another team and not Spurs. Wished Kane took off his shirt in celebration in front of the City fans. This game blows the Top 2 and Top 4 race wide open.
To be frank here
I’d have rather the top 2 had stayed as it was this morning and likewise the top4
Good effort by Arteta and the team to reverse the previous result against Brentford and improvement shown. Arsenal had difficulty in breaking Brentford down in the first half. The back four were solid for Arsenal. Arsenal has to improve its profligacy in front of goal and ruthlessly score the goals the lead up play deserves.
Pepe showed in his cameo, that he is a threat but rusty due to lack of game time. He should have scored if he was faster off the mark after Odegaard’s low cross. Lacazette’s build up play was excellent (eg through ball to ESR for first goal), however it was criminal for a forward of his experience to be offside for his disallowed goal. Interesting selection decisions for Arteta with the availability of Martinelli.
Can’t bench ESR with the form he is in, and Martinelli is more likely to score than Laca.
Tomi back in at RB, ESR on the LW, and Martinelli in CF for the Wolves.