Burnley 0-5 Arsenal: This is a very good team

Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction – Video

After giving West Ham six of the best last week, Arsenal put in a five star performance in the rain and shine of Burnley yesterday.

With only Emile Smith Rowe back in the squad from our collection of injured players, it wasn’t a surprise that Mikel Arteta named an unchanged team. They were outstanding against the Hammers, and yesterday it took just five minutes to put their stamp on the game. Gabriel Martinelli got down the left hand side, played it across the box to Martin Odegaard, and the skipper’s half-volleyed finish into the bottom corner was hit with the kind of power and precision that made it unstoppable.

It had seemed that in the opening few minutes Burnley’s plan was to match Arsenal’s quality with some physicality, but that faded pretty quickly. We had moments, when Leandro Trossard went through for example, and Martinelli caused his full-back some problems, but the danger we caused them didn’t quite turn into clear chances. Trossard had a fresh air shot in front of goal when he should have made it 2-0, and shortly afterwards won a penalty after being played in behind by Kai Havertz whose movement caused Burnley problems all afternoon. There’s not a lot of contact, but it’s a clumsy lunge from the defender.

Odegaard stepped up, put the ball down, and Bukayo Saka stepped up to take his second penalty in successive games. James Trafford went the right way, and while you wouldn’t exactly say it was a mistake from the keeper, I’d say he was a bit frustrated with himself that he didn’t keep it out. That made it 2-0 at the break, and I don’t think it was anything less than Arsenal deserved based on the performance.

If Burnley’s half-time team talk was about keeping it tight early on and seeing if they could nick a goal to get back into the game, we put a fork in that pretty quickly. Havertz found Odegaard, he played it to Saka and you almost could see the defender…

Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/02/burnley-0-5-arsenal-this-is-a-very-good-team/

Author : arseblog

Publish date : 2024-02-18 09:15:12

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