Another clean sheet. Another set-piece goal. Another win against a well-drilled opponent. Arsenal’s momentum in the Premier League continues to build after Eberechi Eze’s first-half strike sealed a hard-fought 1–0 victory over former club Crystal Palace at the Emirates, extending the Gunners’ lead at the top to four points.
With Liverpool beaten by Brentford and Chelsea slipping up against high-flying Sunderland, the pressure was on Arsenal to capitalise. It wasn’t pretty – a stop-start game littered with new injury worries – but the three points felt even sweeter once news of Manchester City’s defeat at Aston Villa filtered through.
No surprise, then, that Mikel Arteta was in a buoyant mood in his post-game press conference:
“I just told the boys that probably I value more this victory than any other victory this season because we knew the difficulty of it.
“You come after playing every three days, you have a big opportunity as well with the things that happened during this weekend, and I knew we play against a team that in my opinion has been one of the best recently in terms of organisation — how difficult they make it, how frustrated they can make you, and the moment that you lose that concentration, they will punish you for sure.
“And we have managed to be very stable, playing the game that we have to play. In the first half [we were] a bit stuck, but we find a way to score the goal. In the second [half] we attacked better, and were more fluent. But with 1–0 we knew that we had to suffer because they are a team that has scored goals against all other opponents this season so to keep the clean sheet again was very, very important.”
Before Eze broke the deadlock on 39 minutes – a beautifully executed scissor-kick after Declan Rice’s free-kick was nodded down by Gabriel Magalhães – Arsenal looked short of ideas. They circulated possession across the back line, trying to draw Palace out, but the visitors held firm: compact, disciplined and aggressive in the challenge whenever the ball went wide.
“Big credit to them [Palace],” said Arteta. “Because you try to do something, they can adjust to it. The way they are set up, they don’t jump to things, they don’t get attracted to things. The two outside players in the back line, they are really aggressive, so it’s really difficult to find those space.
“Then the moment they regain the ball, they have a focal point in Mateta and two runners – you have to be very disciplined because the moment you lose that, on top of the two wing-backs running, you can get very exposed.”
Prior to the match, Arteta had urged supporters to “play the game with us” – a rallying cry for fans to raise the volume and make life uncomfortable for visiting sides. While Palace’s stubbornness occasionally took the edge off the noise, the crowd responded in key moments, roaring the team on when effort matched intensity.
“There were a few moments [they reacted]. Ricky [Calafiori] goes on the floor and puts a tackle [in], Jurrien [Timber] the same, the way Viktor chased every second ball. Some individual actions on the ball as well, that I think we’re getting better again, and the crowd is playing the game with us and it makes such a difference, so, yeah, thanks to them.”
Arteta has often spoken about the importance of set pieces and defensive resilience, and this was another example of both. It wasn’t Arsenal at their slickest, but once again they found a way to win, the kind of grinding, disciplined performance that keeps title challenges alive.
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