Gritty Win… Bonkers Red Card

Crystal Palace 0 Arsenal 1 
Premier League
Monday 21st August 2023 8pm    

Last season, Manchester City visited Selhurst Park and won 1-0 with a late penalty. Yesterday evening, Arsenal also won with a spot kick, although having taken the lead, ended up with a backs to the wall performance with ten men. To credibly challenge for the title, this was the kind of match – away against a mid-table team – that Arsenal had to win. What really felt significant, alongside the three points, was the spirit shown by Arteta’s players. Before the match it felt like a must win game – for the simple reason that to have any chance of winning the title, the club really can’t afford to drop many points to teams outside of the top six. After the nature of the match, the way that victory was achieved was highly encouraging for another title challenge. 

 

The manager picked the same team as against Forest with the exception of the injured Timber being replaced by Tomiyasu. Gabriel remained on the bench to accommodate Partey’s ability to play as the inverted full back. He wasn’t that convincing, at least defensively, against Forest, but looked a little better at Selhurst Park. Arteta has an interesting selection dilemma once Zinchenko is fully match fit. Does he continue to play Partey? Neither he nor the Ukrainian are the most solid of defenders, although the latter is at least more familiar with the role he is asked to play, and seems to create more chaos when he moves forward. The alternative to starting Partey is to bring Gabriel back into central defence and move White into his more familiar right back position. And if Partey and Zinchenko are both selected to start as the two full backs, will they take it in turns to invert? It really doesn’t feel like an option given Arteta normally picks a full back (White, Tomiyasu, Kiwior, even Tierney) who can double up as a central defender when the team are in possession and sometimes have three at the back behind whichever full back has moved into the midfield. 

 

Zinchenko did come on fairly late in the game, but my guess is that match fitness will see him on the bench v Fulham when Arteta names his starting line-up, and Gabriel or Kiwior on the left side of the defence. It feels like Kieran Tierney is now out of favour, and presumably on offer to other clubs, as he did not even make it in the subs’ list at Palace, exactly the kind of game you’d feel is suited to his qualities. Nevertheless, in his absence the team certainly gave a good account of themselves under pressure, at a ground where they have notoriously fallen short a little too often in recent memory. One player who did make the bench was David Raya, although one imagines we may wait until a cup competition to see him make his debut for the club, unless Ramsdale has a drastic drop in form.

 

Until they were reduced to 10 men after an hour, Arsenal dominated possession, with Eddie Nketiah having two good chances to score in the opening 45 minutes, hitting the post with one effort and firing over with what felt like an easier one. Palace threatened danger occasionally but were rarely on target. Declan Rice, playing in the holding midfield role, but venturing forward regularly, was a big influence on the control of the game, and he will surely only get better the more used to his team-mates he becomes. 

 

After the interval, a breakthrough, as a quickly taken free kick by Martinelli found Nketiah in the box, where he was brought down by the Palace keeper. It felt like a training ground move very well executed, as Thomas Partey blocked off Eddie’s marker. There was a chance the penalty might have been denied for the Ghanain’s tactics – at one point he did seem to grab the defender, but fortune was on the visitors’ side. There is talk that VAR is going to be less of a thing in terms of overturning ref’s decisions this season, and a year ago, Partey could well have been penalised. 

 

Martin Odegaard took over the penalty duties – Saka had missed one at West Ham towards the back end of last season that proved costly, as well as another in a pre-season game. The skipper made no mistake with a cool finish into the bottom left-hand corner, as the keeper went the other way. 52 minutes gone and Arsenal were in the ascendancy. 

 

A few minutes later, Tomiyasu was booked for a throw-in not being taken quickly enough, although really, the main culprit for the delay was Kai Havertz. The referee, David Coote wanted to make a point about timewasting though, and the logical victim was the man with the ball in his hands. It was to prove very costly as seven minutes later, Tomiyasu was adjudged to have stopped a Palace break, although replays certainly raised the question of whether he actually made significant contact with Jordan Ayew. It felt harsh, but Ayew played for it (presumably with the full knowledge his opponent was on a yellow) in the same way that Nketiah played for the penalty. 

 

Arsenal needed to control the game at a goal up, but that idea went out the window once they were reduced to ten men. Saka dropped to the left side of defence as Gabriel came on for Martinelli and Arteta went with five at the back. Nketiah was the lone outlet, and even he spent much of the time alongside Rice, Havertz and Odegaard to create congestion in an attempt to prevent Palace carving out clear opportunities. 

 

In time, Eddie was sacrificed for Jorginho, as Arteta gave up on any real hope of a counter-attacking goal to make things more comfortable, although the introduction of Zinchenko for Odegaard did lead to some actual possession for a short spell, this after Palace’s best chance in the game – a free header put wide by Eduoard after 85 minutes. Kiwior replaced Saka and if you count Partey as a defender for this game, the Gunners finished the match with six defenders on the pitch in their outfield nine. That Jorginho and Rice were two of those in front of the six tells you all you need to know about how Arsenal completed this match. Thou shall not pass. The last 25 minutes were the reverse of the first half with the visitors playing deep and all possession enjoyed by Roy Hodgson’s side. 

 

The Gunners saw it out though, to become one of only three sides to take six points from their opening two matches, Manchester City and Brighton being the others. It was not a performance that was particularly entertaining. Palace throttled much of Arsenal’s fluidity when they had eleven men on the pitch. But it is the sort of performance that wins titles. Very early in the season to be talking about that, but the main thing is that nobody is writing off the hopes of Arteta’s side after two matches, which may well have been the case if they failed to win at Selhurst Park. Sure, they could easily make up ground had they not won, but this is the kind of landmark result and especially performance that shapes a season. Points have to be picked up by hook or by crook, sometimes it will be easy on the eye, sometimes it will be a battle. Finally my thanks to Ian Henry for the title of this blog – a gritty win indeed.

 

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