I'll start with what I consider to be the right thing to say: Arsenal fully deserved to win yesterday's game. No one can convince me otherwise. In my opinion Crystal Palace didn't even deserve the goal they scored, had they nicked a point it would have been a footballing crime, a robbery in the daylight.
So what if Palace saw more of the ball, had twice as many shots and managed to swing in ten corners to our 1? The most telling stat is shots on target: the Eagles only managed three from 22, while we had four from 12. They didn't even muster a single shot on target until the 82nd minute, by which time we should have put the game out of their reach.
As not much happened for me to write a fully-fledged review, I'll just cover points of interest.
The squad and tactics
I guessed the side right in my preview. Ospina, Mertesacker, Monreal and Coquelin came back in, Bellerin was left on the bench as a precautionary measure and Welbeck was preferred to Walcott. All in all, four changes to our last game. Wilshere made the bench at Flamini's expense, while one of our defenders replaced Akpom.
Did we intend to sit back from the beginning or was it a combination of Palace's pressure and the atrocious quality of the pitch that made us? It's hard to say really, Selhrust Park heavily reminds me of Britannia Stadium in that it's a hard place to conquer. The pitch, quite a few despicable players and disgusting fans on top complete the picture.
The performance
All of this contributed to one of the most defensive performances I've seen from us. Arseblog's usual "by the numbers" section looks at it at greater detail, I'll just go over several things here. We've made 75 clearances, the most in a single game by a Premier League side since 2009. 19 of these were completed by Mertesacker and I've seen a shady number "7" which related to headed clearances from the German. I say "shady" because I think Mert hit double figures, only for some of the others to be written down as "aerial duels won".
That being said we looked much more dangerous on the counter than Palace did with all their possession football. In fact, we should have been ahead in the 3rd minute already, only for the linesman to wrongly flag Ozil offside. Replays showed the German was on, so here we have another example of horrible refereeing. Gosh, I'm writing about refereeing standards every week.
However, in a piece of divine retribution, Santi put us ahead four minutes later, after Welbeck was fouled in the box. It's hard to say whether the Englishman was really fouled inside the box or just outside, but, like I said, we deserved this goal in the previous episode.
We should have been further ahead come 21st minute. Cazorla whipped in our only corner that day, Giroud flicked the ball wit his head towards an unmarked Alexis on the far post and the Chilean blasted his effort wide.
A minute from the whistle it was 2-0. Alexis's clever pass released Welbeck down the left, the Englishman's effort was saved by Speroni, but Giroud was first on the rebound. Olivier poked home his 50th goal for Arsenal.
The second half was more of the same. Palace had the ball, we had the chances. First Ozil's header was saved by Speroni and in the 56th minute came our best opportunity to make it 3-0. The move was simple: someone (probably Mertesacker) booted the ball long towards Ozil, the German tricked the defender and then sent Alexis one-on-one. Though the angle was tight, I think it's fair to expect Alexis to bury such chances. Instead, he missed both the target and the onrushing Olivier Giroud.
After that we fell back and Palace continued to turn the screw. Gayle's header in the 70th minute fizzed just over, Puncheon's free-kick did likewise in the 75th and then, when everyone thought the game was over, the Eagles nearly got a point for their trouble.
The scuffle in the box in the 94th minute saw Murray pull one back and then he almost made a brace a minute later, but, fortunately, his effort hit the post with Ospina out of the picture. We held on and got the three points and, I repeat, we fully deserved those. Despite being dominated it terms of territory and possession we created more chances and used them better.
The aftermath
"I believe that the players know that maybe they switched off a little bit too early. Overall I still must say that our central defenders played very well today against a very direct and a very physical game at the back. They did well so overall I’m pleased to have won three points in a place like this."
That win sees us move into third, as United lost to Swansea (haha) and Southampton is losing to Liverpool as we speak. Tottenham also dropped points at home, so we are now four points ahead of them.
Now onto Monaco.
I'll be back with the preview of that game, most likely, so stay tuned.
Until later
Follow me on Twitter (@AlexBaguzin)
So what if Palace saw more of the ball, had twice as many shots and managed to swing in ten corners to our 1? The most telling stat is shots on target: the Eagles only managed three from 22, while we had four from 12. They didn't even muster a single shot on target until the 82nd minute, by which time we should have put the game out of their reach.
As not much happened for me to write a fully-fledged review, I'll just cover points of interest.
The squad and tactics
I guessed the side right in my preview. Ospina, Mertesacker, Monreal and Coquelin came back in, Bellerin was left on the bench as a precautionary measure and Welbeck was preferred to Walcott. All in all, four changes to our last game. Wilshere made the bench at Flamini's expense, while one of our defenders replaced Akpom.
Did we intend to sit back from the beginning or was it a combination of Palace's pressure and the atrocious quality of the pitch that made us? It's hard to say really, Selhrust Park heavily reminds me of Britannia Stadium in that it's a hard place to conquer. The pitch, quite a few despicable players and disgusting fans on top complete the picture.
The performance
All of this contributed to one of the most defensive performances I've seen from us. Arseblog's usual "by the numbers" section looks at it at greater detail, I'll just go over several things here. We've made 75 clearances, the most in a single game by a Premier League side since 2009. 19 of these were completed by Mertesacker and I've seen a shady number "7" which related to headed clearances from the German. I say "shady" because I think Mert hit double figures, only for some of the others to be written down as "aerial duels won".
That being said we looked much more dangerous on the counter than Palace did with all their possession football. In fact, we should have been ahead in the 3rd minute already, only for the linesman to wrongly flag Ozil offside. Replays showed the German was on, so here we have another example of horrible refereeing. Gosh, I'm writing about refereeing standards every week.
However, in a piece of divine retribution, Santi put us ahead four minutes later, after Welbeck was fouled in the box. It's hard to say whether the Englishman was really fouled inside the box or just outside, but, like I said, we deserved this goal in the previous episode.
We should have been further ahead come 21st minute. Cazorla whipped in our only corner that day, Giroud flicked the ball wit his head towards an unmarked Alexis on the far post and the Chilean blasted his effort wide.
A minute from the whistle it was 2-0. Alexis's clever pass released Welbeck down the left, the Englishman's effort was saved by Speroni, but Giroud was first on the rebound. Olivier poked home his 50th goal for Arsenal.
The second half was more of the same. Palace had the ball, we had the chances. First Ozil's header was saved by Speroni and in the 56th minute came our best opportunity to make it 3-0. The move was simple: someone (probably Mertesacker) booted the ball long towards Ozil, the German tricked the defender and then sent Alexis one-on-one. Though the angle was tight, I think it's fair to expect Alexis to bury such chances. Instead, he missed both the target and the onrushing Olivier Giroud.
After that we fell back and Palace continued to turn the screw. Gayle's header in the 70th minute fizzed just over, Puncheon's free-kick did likewise in the 75th and then, when everyone thought the game was over, the Eagles nearly got a point for their trouble.
The scuffle in the box in the 94th minute saw Murray pull one back and then he almost made a brace a minute later, but, fortunately, his effort hit the post with Ospina out of the picture. We held on and got the three points and, I repeat, we fully deserved those. Despite being dominated it terms of territory and possession we created more chances and used them better.
The aftermath
"I believe that the players know that maybe they switched off a little bit too early. Overall I still must say that our central defenders played very well today against a very direct and a very physical game at the back. They did well so overall I’m pleased to have won three points in a place like this."
That win sees us move into third, as United lost to Swansea (haha) and Southampton is losing to Liverpool as we speak. Tottenham also dropped points at home, so we are now four points ahead of them.
Now onto Monaco.
I'll be back with the preview of that game, most likely, so stay tuned.
Until later
Follow me on Twitter (@AlexBaguzin)