Arsenal earned a comfortable three nil win against Nottingham Forest, thanks to a first half goal from Bukayo Saka and two second half goals from Thomas Partey and Ethan Nwaneri.
This ensured we broke a sequence of four games without a win in the League. If you told someone that the Gunners were without a win in the four previous games after this encounter, they would’ve been very surprised at the confident display they served up yesterday. We were at our free flowing best at times and the result could’ve even been more in our favour due to some of the good football we were playing. Along with the goal for Nwaneri, what would’ve been a cherry on top would’ve been the clean sheet.
The foundations to our recent title pushes has been our solid defence, this was especially the case last season where we ended that campaign with a whopping 18 cleansheets as well as a measly 0.8 goals conceded per game, both of those aforementioned stats were League high figures last season and a crucial reason for us staying in the title race till the very end.
This season however we have faltered, especially in recent games where the team hasn’t been at it’s collective best. Prior to the Forest game, our last clean sheet in the Premier League came away to Spurs in the middle of September. That is just not good enough if you want to challenge for the League, so I’m sure we will all be happy to see us finally keeping one against Forest.
Looking at the relatively easy fixtures coming ahead, we will be hoping the Gunners can keep more clean sheets so Daid Raya can compete for the Golden Glove again this season.
BENJAMIN KENNETH
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Welcome news. What a headline though! Contrast it with the ones along the lines of “the best defence in the EPL”, “world class defenders” etc. not that long ago. Just shows you never can tell. Hopefully, Arsenal (defence and the team as a whole) can now get back on track.
Clean sheets are a vital ingredient for success and the return of Calafiori has brought balance to our back four.Our full backs on Saturday may not be great in an attacking sense, but defensively, they completely nullified the threat of the Forrest wingers who have done very well this season.
Arsenal rae famed for having a rock solid defence, but the numbers and performances are way down on that level – and Odegaard creativity can’t be blamed, nor an injury crisis (yes we have had a few injuries but been able to field 3 of Saliba, Gabriel, White, Timber and Calafiori most games, and quite often the whole back 4).
It is a big concern, there is no doubt conceding in 8 consecutive PL games has cost us points but has snuck under the radar somehow
I hate to say it Rice has been a shadow of last season, could Rice form be a factor?