- How Arteta is copying the Guardiola method and what it means for Arsenal
- The deadwood journalist producing three football stories an hour, every hour
https://youtu.be/iGJnKzV6kf8
(See also “That pass from Saka” below)
Starting XI
Ramsdale
Saliba White Gabriel Zinchenko
Xhaka Partey
Saka Odegaard Martinelli
Jesus
Arsenal substitutions during the game
- Ramsdale (Turner 72),
- Zinchenko (Tavares 46),
- White (Cedric 72),
- Xhaka (Lokonga 78),
- Partey (Elneny 72),
- Martinelli (Pepe 72),
- Odegaard (Maitland-Niles 78),
- Saka (Marquinhos 72),
- Jesus (Nketiah 57).
Unused subs: Bellerin, Walters, Mari, Holding, Nelson, Balogun.
Injury news
“Jesus got a knock in the first-half in his quad I think and it wasn’t very comfortable to continue and, obviously, we didn’t take any risks today.”
Results thus far
- 1.FC Nurnberg 3-5 Arsenal
- Arsenal 2-0 Everton
- Orlando City 1-3 Arsenal
- Arsenal 4-0 Chelsea
- Sevilla – Saturday July 30, Arsenal Stadium, kick-off 12.30pm BST
That pass from Zinchenko 🔥 pic.twitter.com/cOCORIIz3g
— SportBoxingUA (@sports_ua) July 24, 2022
I can only comment as to what I saw from the highlihts, but I believe we are seeing our young Gunners playing with much more poise, confidence, self-belief.
We are seeing the result of a full year of experience playing together. And the new faces (Saliba, Zinchenko, Jesus to name just these) just don’t look that new : they just slotted in like they were part of the squad last season.
This is going to be an interesting new Arsenal this coming season.
Excellent performance from everyone. Some lovely football and we refused to be bullied by the aggressive Chelsea tactics apparent from the start of the game.
Another impressive performance from rookie Saliba, this time against quality opposition.
From the get go, we were far better than Chelsea. We pressed well and transitioned far quicker to the attack. They had some half chances but it we were controlling the game. It was also clear that they were having difficulty dealing with the quickness of our attackers. Gallagher, in particular, was fortunate that he wasn’t sent off in the first 30 minutes for repeated fouling. It would seem that their 4-4-2 was not effective so they switched to a 3-4=3 and they had a 20 minute run of play in the second half that if they didn’t produce a ton of chances at least had us on the back foot.
Our first 2 goals were straightforward breaks against opened up with good passing. Our 3rd was offside but they play leading up to it showed Chelsea t 6s and 7s; all over the place. And, our 4th was Chelsea turning off at the death and allowing a beautiful cross to an unmarked Lukonga.
I reckon that Chelsea will have sorted out their transfers within a fortnight but they may well drop a few points at the start of the season as new purchases get bedded in. We, however, have got to be optimistic about this season. We haven’t seen much of Zinchenko, or Vieira, yet and we have two quality players with knocks Tieirney and Smith-Rowe.
I am looking forward to 5 August.
I note that Chelsea seem to use these pre-season friendlies as excuses to injure our players before the start of the season proper. Didn’t Partey get an ankle injury last year? I think he missed a month due to that one.