Arsenal earned a hard-fought and perhaps undeserved 1-0 win against Leeds this afternoon to remain at the top of the Premier League table.
The Gunners are in dreamland as they continue to win regardless of the circumstances.
The game against Leeds came after their wins over Liverpool and Bodo/Glimt, and the Whites gave them the game of their lives.
They outplayed Arsenal in several parts of the game and even missed a penalty.
In the end, Mikel Arteta’s men saw off their opponents and won in a manner that they could have lost it before.
The award-winning journalist, Ibukun Aluko watched on as they earned yet another three points and admits this Arsenal team is different.
He tweeted:
“This is what they call a hard-fought VICTORY!!!
“The normal Arsenal would have lost this game.
“We can call them title contenders now.”
Just Arsenal Opinion
The game against Leeds was not as fluid as most of our matches have been in the past.
However, we managed to get the win, and it shows this team has come of age and it now has the character required to win titles.
I agree a hundred percent. You can never be excellent day in day out. Some games will turn out like this and the most important thing is to get the 3 crucial points even if it means winning ugly. Hopefully we learnt some lessons too on game management. Arteta is really too long to make the necessary subs. Otherwise 3 very important points in the bag.
We rode our luck, but never broke. They had chances, but we made all of them difficult – even the penalty, we were trying to put Bamford off.
I have to say, for everything said about Gabriel recently, and his minor indiscretion in this game that almost got him in trouble – this is the sort of game we needed his grit.
Still, Ramsdale was clear motm.
Ramsdale was supper tommi and saliba struggle but i think experience from xhaka and party also contributed a lot in the midfield
thank for the goal from saka. today it was not the easy one at all toughest one among muches Arsenal have ever played this season
So what is the “normal Arsenal”?
This season has seen us beat the spuds after they came back at us – beat pool after they came back twice against us, so what is this “award winning journalist” measuring us against?
For all those who want VAR to be scrapped, this game should change your minds.
We could have been without Gabriel for three straight games and (if the penalty had stood and converted) lost two points – thankfully VAR was used correctly and both the above were cancelled out.
Also, for those Arsenal fans predicting city would be the new Invincibles, take a deep breath and understand just what it took to become “Invincibles”.
City and Pep, despite the unlimited resources at their beck and call, have failed yet again to emulate AW and his squad of players achievements.
Long may it continue.
I’ve always held in the back of my mind that some of the weird VAR decisions were a deliberate ploy to get rid of VAR so certain people/groups could go back to the old regime. When VAR functions properly it’s valuable.
The football history is full of controversies and wrong decisions, and I have seen it much worse than yesterday.
The speed of modern football demands something more than a traditional referee and a couple of linesmen. I believe that VAR will be a useful tool with seamless integration in the future. At the moment it’s not working good enough, but it’s still a relatively new technology. I’m optimistic about the future, what we did yesterday can be done better tomorrow or the day after 👍
Some of the narrative being spouted is nonsense. Arsenal have ground out results similar to this in the not so distant past. It is clearly untrue that the “normal Arsenal”, whatever that means, would have lost this game.
What Arsenal have been unable to do in recent years is maintain the kind of consistency that we have seen (so far!) this season.
True this Arsenal team is different and super talented especially with the experience gained from last season losing to Spurs in the top 4 race.
Time will tell if the mentality is grown/mature. There’s still a very long way to go and I am super positive of at least a Champion’s League spot.
I agree with you, but the World Cup could change a lot and is something we can’t control. I’m not sure the World Cup is beneficial for our squad / club.