HT ARS 2-1 WOL After an absolutely blistering, scintillating, oxygen-robbing start, we cooled off. BUT managed to just barely keep control of the game. Surely we shoulda won this game by 2, 3 or 4 goals. We made it an overly nervy finish. But in the end got what we needed. For the moment a 4pt lead at the top. MO8 started to look like his old awesome self again. The one real blemish may have been a late injury to Tomi... pray it's a minor, short-lived calf strain, but with his history... Luckily White seems just about fully fit again. Onward... to Luton in 3 days
OZ with the notable error giving up the goal, but I’m still feeling more annoyed about all the wasted chances that should have put Wolves away. Eddie - I’m looking squarely at you, especially since you just stood there in disbelief instead of playing the rebound from your shot off the post.
I went back to watch this movement again and while the jury is still out in whether Eddie "just stood there", OMG the no look ball Saliba plays to enable Odegaard to waltz thru the midfield and find Eddie is sneaky AF!! He completely sells the Wolves midfield on the pass out wide to White while slicing the ball thru the middle to MO8. The man is world class. Watch from 86:50 . . .
Divey, calling for a handball on big Gabby that clearly wasn't. Finally, got a yellow for a blatant dive. Yeah, he's quite annoying.
Missed this match so idk if this is against the prevailing opinion, but I really like how many chances we created
Absolutely. We created a lot, should've finished one or two more, and held them to almost nothing other than the chance we gifted them.
Seems like we got our Odegaard back too Martin Ødegaard, Performance Detailed - Arsenal vs WolvesThis is the Ødegaard Arsenal had been missing, 13 progressive passes! 6 key passes! 1.9 xA!Oh and he added a goal too pic.twitter.com/svWnnh5Lxx— Scott Willis (@scottjwillis) December 2, 2023
It seemed like he was in 20 yards of space every time he received the ball. I don't know if that was purposeful from Wolves, if it was a failure of theirs, or if it was something we did.
I find myself watching him a lot during matches. Ball recovery is out of this world. Imagine if City had signed him...
Probably the most clear cut chances I can remember in the Prem of late from us, genuinely good opportunities we should have buried but didn't, we really should have scored 4 or 5. Martinelli was unlucky off the upright after beating 2 players, Saka just high on a cut in shot, Jesus didn't see the ball over the top clip Big Gabi, Rice was tee'd up for two and dragged them wide and then Nketiah found the upright. Of the two, Martinelli really should have scored and Nketiah absolutely should have scored. And its scenarios like this where if we bring in a new ST next summer and Eddie goes down the pecking order he can't really complain because these are his bread and butter goals. While we are seeing Martinelli (pace to the byline and cut backs/cut inside and curling shots) and Saka (cut inside curling shots and right footed drilled crosses) add new strings to their game and have made them nailed on starters Eddie isn't really adding anything new to what he offered last year and now he is missing the goals he was scoring during his purple patch last season. I don't see how ST isn't the next position we upgrade which is really bad news for Eddie. But Eddie scores that goal and we then don't have a nervy last 5 minutes. We should have battered Wolves to boost our GD because that will be important for top 4/top2 by the end of the season.