Martinez makes a good diving save to his right of a good counter-attack from Leeds. He's done really well to smother all shots and not give up any rebounds
Didn't see the 1st half but the stats look awful shots and possession wise for us. The lineup is strong but not looking well. Just starting watching the 2nd half we seemed to be finally waking up and now Reiss Nelson scores off a deflection.
Arsenal 1-0 Leeds Pepe turns on a defender at midfield, and makes a great run, then passes to Laca who crosses. There a deflection, and Nelson is at the goal to clean up the garbage. Not a pretty goal, but it counts and is well deserved.
Nelson has looked particularly bright this half. Would love to see Laca get a goal to build some confidence before the end of the match.
Nelson with a great move at the top of the box creates a lot of space, he finds Lacazette who struggles to keep his feet from a hard challenge, and can't get a shot off. Ref allows play to continue.
68 minute: Martinelli on for Nelson. He's been arguably our best player this half, imo. Arsenal continues to dominate possession. totally in control of the match this half.
Also our players look so gassed even after six days since last match, Arteta must be working them hard lol
FT: 1-0 Tale of two halves, neither sexy but Arsenal actually worked the 2nd. Survive and advance. The good news is Arsenal made half-time adjustments and showed some grit.
I had to leave for dad duty at 70 min, so I missed the last 20 minutes. Looks like Martinelli did well, but not much happened. Whatever Arteta said at halftime was received and acted on. Would love to know what was said that turned the entire game around. As congested as the last few weeks have been, the last thing we would need is a replay at Leeds. So a win is good as far as I'm concerned. While I'm disappointed with the first 45, the squad does seem to be steadily building in character and belief. Both are needed, and all I ask for as a fan.
As others have said, definitely a tale of two halves. We were lucky not to be 2-nil down at the half. But in the second half we were the better team. On to Bournemouth.
Or they are just terribly out of shape and not fit and Artea is whipping them into shape and proper fitness. Luiz alluded to this after the Win vs Yanited.
to be fair, taylor was really letting things go early on. one of our guys got taken down with his leg scissored down to not much concern from taylor.
it was weird. at half-time (i was late and missed game start/listing), the TV people listed them as being in a back 3 with kolasinac and nelson being wingbacks/wide midfielders but, from the way it looked to me, sokratis was at right-back. it MIGHT be a thing where he is looking to protect holding by sandwiching him between two old heads. that said, it does seem to be the shape arteta likes to go with? one (left) wingback attacking while the other (right) fullback tucking in to provide support to the centrebacks. i know kolasinac is a flawed defender but damn if he is not a threatening attacker. kolasinac/sokratis would be the beefiest tandem of fullback i can think of.
half-time adjustments AND appropriately timed proactive substitution. yes, i am STILL bitter about wenger's lack of care and reactive substitutions after BadShit[tm] happened.
we are also pressing full pitch significantly more than since . . . since . . . i don't know since when. we now press (as a team - and not just a single coquelin/torreira). and we swarm (er, at least in the 2nd half) the ball now. the announcers was talking about how much lacazette was harassing and bodying the centrebacks all game. you can still see him doing it at the end of the game. AND they were even talking about how, while he didn't have his best (attacking) game today, ozil was contributing in other ways. english. announcer. praising. ozil. also, don't forget that we are at the end of the christmas/new year stretch. that's a lot of games in not much time.
y'know, whatever you think of xhaka's footballing ability, you can see why (even during that period when everyone was shitting on him) it kept being said that he was well thought of in the locker room. you can see when nelson came off, he came over to give the kid a hug to congratulate and cheer him on. same with the second sub. when david luiz and lacazette were standing over the ball on the guendouzi free kick, he came over to joke with them to lighten the mood. i think the team could still do with an actual leader but someone to keep people's head in the game is valuable. as, in my opinion, is sokratis' fiery-ness. unlike, not to dogpile on him, mustafi. but i really hate his whiny reaction/expression every time something negative happens. it's the same same i-am-looking-for-someone-to-blame reaction as szczesny always had. ugh.
we were. sorry if i was unclear but my point was that we were STILL winning but you can tell some of the people were running out of gas. so arteta made a move to bring in some fresh legs WHILE we were still ahead and doing well. and, by being proactive, kept us on the front foot. by contrast, wenger would have waited for our tired legs to allow leeds to score (say, 77th to 80th minute?) and THEN he would bring in 2 different attackers to "go for it" as a reactive move. then, post-game, we would have been "very unfortunate" to have given up the goal.