Briefing As Arsenal Thrash Crystal Palace 5–0
Arsenal’s mid-season inconsistency is over.
An emphatic home victory over a powerless Crystal Palace banished some of the noises that gathered over Christmas, coping three defeats and a draw in league and FA Cup.
The win lifts.Mikel Arteta’s boys back up to third in the table. Superb!
Seconds after conceding the fourth, Palace were somehow caught upfield with no defensive numbers.
It was lifted over the top for Martinelli who had loads of time and space to place it at the back of the net.
He curls it past Henderson into the far corner again, carbon copy of his first goal, scoreline, 5–0. Arsenal showed superiority throughout the rout.
Arsenal took advantage of Palace shortcomings with two symmetrical goals. Palace simply were out of order.
Arteta will be delighted with his team’s performance; they looked confident and controlled across the clock. He will have been pleased with the fact they scored five goals and added an important clean sheet.
Smile Smith Rowe showed that if he can stay fit, it will be massive to Arsenal as they juggle Premier League and Champions League objectives.
Gabriel and Martinelli were the players thrust in front after the game and the Arsenal defender was in high spirits, despite his second goal going down as an own goal.
"I'm so happy to score two goals today, to help my team and I'm so happy for Martinelli to score two goals from the bench," he told TNT Sports. "If he had one more minute, he would have scored three goals!
"We work a lot at set pieces because we know the quality of our players and we'll keep going."
Martinelli was electric off the bench and capped his fine performance with two excellent finishes.
"It was a brilliant performance from the team, we needed a game like that," he told TNT Sports. "I always say I'm here to help the team, even if I only play one, two or three minutes and today, I had the opportunity to score two. I'm so happy with the team and the performance as well.
"It was so important (to get an early goal). We know our qualities and it doesn't matter what people say outside. We believe in ourselves and we showed today what we can do."
Talks heading into today’s game was about Arsenal’s lack of potency, “how they can get their rhythm back” so an early goal was the perfect cure.
"It's really important to win today, but that early goal from big Gabi was really nice for us," Saka told TNT Sports. "It calmed us and we could control the game more so we could go for the second and third. I thought he (Martinelli) was going to score a hat-trick at one point!
"We all know we can score goals, we all believe in ourselves and we saw that today. We scored five so we're happy with the performance."
Arteta was, unsurprisingly, very happy with what he saw from his players. He must have chased for that in the dressing room and he was asked in his interview with TNT Sports what he was most pleased about.
"The positivity that we had right from the beginning," he responded. "I think had a really good feeling the last 10 days about the team and how they reacted. They are great players, we have a great team and today they really wanted it and I could feel that.
"I'm really pleased, firstly, with a clean sheet and then scoring five goals that we really needed."
Both Rice and Gabriel were withdrawn due to discomfort in the second half, Arteta gave reasons why:
- "Declan was feeling something, a sensation in his hamstring so we didn't want to take any risks at 3-0," he told TNT Sports.
- "Gabi had a tackle in the first half on his knee and he was struggling a bit."
The Briefing: Set-pieces settle the nerves
Gabriel’s first-half headers were significant for a few reasons.
They solidified Arsenal’s dominant start to the game, but also reestablished their status as the Premier League’s highest scorers from both set-pieces this season.
Not only that, but Arsenal also registered the most goals from corners (10) in the Premier League this season. This is not a new trend.
For the first goal, the importance of each player doing their job correctly was underpinned by Trossard blocking Joachim Andersen, one of Palace’s strongest aerial threats, to give Gabriel a clear run at the ball. Benjamin White did a similar job on Palace goalkeeper Dean Henderson for the second goal.
Arsenal tactical prowess showed and it paid off throughout the game.
Declan Rice also got his second assist in Arsenal shirt from just his second corner taken this season.
Match In Photos:
