Arsenal v Palace Review – Gabriel and Martinelli braces leads Gunners to comfortable 5-star win

Soccer

Saturday, 20 January 2024

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Mikel Arteta had to do something to breathe new life into Arsenal’s attack so we saw Trossard replace Martinelli on the wing.

The Gunners started brightly and after ten minutes the change paid off as Trossard delivered a perfect corner onto Gabriel’s head to give us the lead, but still no attacker on the scoresheet.

After that the game went a bit flat with Palace staying physical and Arsenal only getting a short time around the Palace keepers area.

After half an hour it was Palace laying on pressure and forcing a very loose pass out from Raya went straight to Lerma and suddenly Raya had to make a great save to stop the equalizer.

We than went straight down the other end, won a corner, and yet again Gabriel got on the end of it and suddenly we had doubled our lead.

That’s more like it! We may have the goals back but we atill haven’t seen much action from our strikers, and twice so far it’s looked like Odegaard dithered when in very forward positions.

We had time for Trossard to shoot over the bar from close range but I think Arteta will be happy enough going into the break…

Gabriel celebrating #Arsenal pic.twitter.com/exWdohGaJo

— The Arsenal (@davidhickman14) January 20, 2024

Arsenal flew out of the changing rooms and within a minute a Saka corner nearly gave Gabriel his hat trick, and then Rice tested the Palace keeper with a long range strike.

Nothing much happened as Palace strongly tried to get a goal back, but they left themselves wide open. A fantastic throw out from Raya went to Saka on the wing and a simple pass to Trossard in the middle and he made no mistake and coolly slotted it in. 3-0 and definitely 3 points in the bag with half hour to go….

Naturally, with 20 minutes to go, Arteta made his changes with Martinelli replacing Trossard and Smith-Rowe coming on for Havertz, who I didn’t even know was on the pitch!

The game is over as a spectacle, but Arteta gives Rice a rest for the last 15 mins and replaced by Jorginho, and 5 mins later Nketiah and Kiwior are given a short cameo with Gabriel and Jesus removed. Amazingly Arsenal have three shots on target and three goals, that is a massive change from our last few matches!

Basically the last 20 minutes have all been taken up with subs from both sides as it looks like the result is accepted by all and they are just kiling time, although Arsenal have made a few chances at a gentle pace.

There was time for one more bit of action as Martinelli finally used his speed and coolly slotted it into the far corner, he made it 4-0 and the next minute he made an exact copy of his last one to make it 5-0 !!!! Game over and out!

Well, I’m happy with this result, and I’m sure Arteta will be breathing a sigh of relief that we have got back to winning ways….

Gabriel Magalhaes: