Arsenal certainly looked imperious and confident when they took to the field at Selhurst Park, and they were totally dominant for the whole of the first half, but Palace’s dogged defending meant that the Gunners were restricted to just three shots on target in the whole match, one of which was Martin Odegaard’s penalty after Nketiah was taken down by the Palace keeper.
We went ahead in the 54th minute, but within the next ten minutes, Tomiyasu, Arteta’s replacement for the injured Jurrien Timber, attracted two yellow cards and was given his marching orders, leaving Arsenal to defend with ten men for the rest of the game.
But, despite our nerve-wracking end to the game, Mikel Arteta was overjoyed with the result as we came away with three points from a very difficuly venue. “I loved it, absolutely loved it.” the Boss told Arsenal.com.
“It’s a really difficult place to come. We played how we wanted to play 11 against 11, we dominated the game, we created enough chances, we missed two very, very huge chances that normally we put away, but we never gave up. We continued the way we wanted to continue.
“Eddie earned us the right to go ahead with his action, we scored the penalty and then we had to play half an hour with 10 men, which is obviously a conflict that we didn’t prepare.
“We had to adapt and I think the players worked fantastically because I don’t think we gave anything away. The subs were great, the way they came out, the concentration, the focus on how they helped the team and changed the team’s momentum in many occasions of the game, so I’m really happy.”
Arteta certainly seems like a happy bunny, but it is blindingly obvious that we will ned to find our scoring boots soon for when we come up against even more dangerous opponents….
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Arteta love this win and I will tell you why.
Its three massive points in a ugly win, in the process throwing off Dan’s Monday night predictions at a difficult ground against a well organized Roy Hodgson side.
Winning against all odds , appalling officiating with his Cabon copy bran of football from his legendary old master.
It is these kinds of win that could propel Arsenal to lifting the big jug.
The whole approach reminds me of the army engineer in the US army, suggesting an idea of entering Iraq from across the desert resulting in Schwarzkopf the germans general to calling him a mad man.
Schwarzkopf thought the heavy equipment could never handle the terrain with dust and a host of other factors, but the engineer rightfully thought if his superior think its impossible so will the Iraqis, the rest is history.
For Arteta to outsmart the willy old fox of Roy Hodgson, he should be commended for the ugly win and that’s why he loves this one.
It was a very resilient performance after we went down to 10 men, and I thought Saliba and Rice were immense defensively.Every Arsenal player worked their socks off to preserve the three points they deserved as before the ludicrous second booking of Tomi, we were in control.
The result, the points and the fight are unquestionable. Some of the decisions by some players, the manager and the referee were. I thought Saliba, Rice, Partey (even though he was hamstrung) and not many have mentioned Nketiah were the catylist for the win.
Yeah, I agree on Nketiah – he actually played really well, and won us the penalty. Unfortunately, people will focus on the missed chances, but he did his part
Nketiah was a bloody menace last night and people don’t appreciate his low centre of gravity and ability to spin in tight places. Why on earth he was taken off, i dont know.
@ Reggie
I do, in line with MA’s thinking and to keep him for the next game and to keep Havertz on to win the aerial duels.
But it would have been better to keep Nketiah (take off Havertz) and make him run the channels as that would have stretched CP backline and given us an outball IMO.
Very true, his dribbling was excellent – he seemed to be the only one trying to break through at times, rather than playing an easy pass. I love his confidence and attitude.
Eddie is simply underrated. The boy plays well and is just hard working. He misses equally as Jesus, but he is very good foward
It’s a huge win.
It’s a game week 2 where Man U loss to To
Chelsea loss to Westham
City narrowly win Castle from home.
Selhurst Park is not an easy side, with the unfortunate record of Arteta never win an away Monday match talk more with red card.
There are things we should put into consideration!