By Tony Attwood
The starting team against Colorado was
Macey
Jenkinson Chambers Medley Thompson
Olayinka Burton Martinelli
John-Jules Saka
Nketiah
Arsenal won 3-0 with the goals coming from Saka, Olayinka and Martinelli – and what has got everyone rather excited was Martinelli and the word “brilliant” for the goal is being used as the hyperbole builds up.
Martinelli’s role has been described up to now as a playmaker, rather than a goalscorer – it is good to see that he can do both. In this case he took the goal by running quickly onto a cross from Thompson and then improvised the goal which didn’t look on.
There has also been a lot of talk about the young lad’s workrate and enthusiasm. Here’s the video
The first goalscorer was Saka on 13 minutes, after Nketiah helped the ball forward, and Olanyinka got the second on 16 minutes.
In the second half we had the expected range of substitutions. Here’s the list…
Not at all sure how much can be read into any of this. We often see a lot of youngsters tried out, but only a few make it through to the first team. But as noted before, this is where the Europa League can certainly help, if we have some of the smaller teams to play in the group stages.
Interesting that Chambers and Jenkinson played – this could be because Arsenal are trying to showcase them for possible buyers, or it could be that the manager just wanted a couple of more experienced performers to help stabilise the defence. It is hard to say – but for the moment both men are still at the club. However they did not get the gentle introduction of Ozil, Lacazette and Aubameyang for the last 11 minutes.
We shall see in due course.
Yeah was a good outing to get minutes into the legs. Martinelli could and maybe should have had a couple more. He produced a couple of decent crosses too so not to shabby for a debut. Saka was standout performer for me in the evening. It wasn’t a great Colorado rapids team and result is meaningless but it is minutes in legs and experience of first team set up for those lads. Overall great way to start pre season.
OT: Criminal convictions for assault in sport
LawInSport has an article out, which discusses various circumstances where a player in some game has been convicted of a criminal offence due to some event in a sporting event. Football is mentioned multiple times.
https://www.lawinsport.com/topics/articles/item/the-role-and-extent-of-criminal-sanctions-in-sport
I think there probably were occasions in the Wenger era where a criminal investigation might have been reasonable. But the article does mention that civil actions are a possibility.