Arsenal 5-0 Crystal Palace

by Layth Yousif

at Ashburton Grove 

IT HAS been 115 years since Arsenal lost three consecutive home matches in all competitions without scoring — and Mikel Arteta’s under-fire Gunners started as a team very much trying to avoid that staggering statistic.

With only four points earned from the last 15 on offer, hopes had been fading of Arteta’s side maintaining a challenge for the title.

Yet a fortuitously timed midwinter break in Dubai reset and refreshed Arteta’s previously laboured squad. Judging by the way they clinically took apart Palace through effective dead ball situations, set-piece coach Nicolas Jover must take some credit too.

Gabriel rose highest to put the home side 1-0 ahead at 11 minutes after Arsenal’s Brazil centre-back emphatically connected with Declan Rice’s deep corner. The opener certainly appeared to have Jover’s stamp on, not least with Leandro Trossard’s excellent movement to create havoc and space in a crowded box.

The goal certainly helped to banish early nerves, as well as memories of underwhelming defeats at home to West Ham in the league, and Liverpool in the FA Cup, sandwiched of course by an inexplicably poor performance during the 2-1 loss at Fulham on New Year’s Eve.

Never can a midwinter break have been so needed for Arteta’s beleaguered side — who not only escaped their poor form for a working jaunt to Dubai, but also last week’s bitterly cold weather.

Gabriel had the chance to double the lead on 22 minutes, but his header flew wide of Dean Henderson’s left-hand post as Palace failed to counter Arsenal’s effective set-pieces.

Soon afterwards it was David Raya’s turn to make a save, palming the ball away from Jefferson Lerma’s shot.

However, there in a microcosm was displayed David Raya conundrum.

For you could applaud Raya for the save from Palace’s No8 Lerma — yet equally, you can criticise the former Brentford keeper for poor distribution in giving the ball away moments earlier.

As Arteta’s side kept up the pressure, Gabriel thought he had nodded home for his second to double the Gunners lead on 37 minutes, before it was eventually given as an own goal by Eagles keeper Henderson.

Palaces keeper, it must be said, made a dreadful hash of attempting to clear Bukayo Saka’s corner as Gabriel steered the ball into the net via the former Manchester United keeper for 2-0. No wonder Arteta looked pleased with Jover.

“Having the ability to score from many different ways — especially when you attack a low block team like this — to score in a certain way everything has to be nailed absolutely perfectly,” said a satisfied Arteta after the match.

Arsenal made the game safe following a sweeping move upfield by Jesus, to feed Trossard, who cut inside his man No17 Nathaniel Clyne and fire past Henderson for 3-0 on 59 minutes. 

Credit must also go to Raya, who started the move with quick-witted distribution to Jesus. It was no surprise from the touchline, Arteta immediately pointed to Raya during the celebrations to highlight his role in the goal. A penny for Aaron Ramsdale’s thoughts at that precise moment, for Raya is indubitably the manager’s favoured choice between the sticks.

Job done. And even VAR was satisfied — and that was before two late strikes from Gabi Martinelli who finished both efforts with aplomb to send the home support home happy — and banish any thoughts of mirroring 1908’s miserable run. 

For Palace, at the end of the match, their dispirited fans raised a banner raised over at least four rows in the away end that read: “Wasted potential on and off the pitch weak decisions taking us backward.” You could understand their frustration, if not their lack of punctuation.

“They are totally entitled to their opinion in that respect,” said Roy Hodgson after the match, adding: “I do understand their frustration, even anger and disappointment that things haven’t got better.”

You could also argue lugging such tangible sentiment to a game before you knew the result could be described as the dictionary definition of defeatism — although judging by the sheer size and breadth of the sentence that such a large number of their supporters had to hold aloft in the visitors’ section, it perhaps would have been easier to take a dictionary.

Yet you could feel far more sympathy with Palace’s long-suffering fans for the pre-match farce that saw more than 20 of the Met Police’s finest remove a drum from an unwilling drummer and his band.

In unintendedly hilarious, yet strangely disturbing scenes — reminiscent of the scene when a Roman Legion led by John Cleese found a spoon in film farce Monty Python’s Life of Brian — an unseemly large number of high-vis clad officers from the Met struggled for nearly 10 minutes to remove a recalcitrant drum from an equally recalcitrant Eagles’ drummer.

You could have been forgiven for sniggering.

Except Palace’s precarious predicament on and off the pitch is no laughing matter.