Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka were brilliant again and yet that’s somehow still bad news for Mikel Arteta on a night when absurd calls for his sacking rumble on in the depths of Arsenal social media.
The only reason any Arsenal fan cares about the Carabao Cup is because it doesn’t look like they’re going to win the Premier League. They wouldn’t give a damn about Mikel Arteta failing to win them a trophy for over four years (and no mate, we’re not counting the Community Shield because you’re not either really) if it was them and not Liverpool six points clear at the top of the table.
And part of the problem for Arteta – when deciding whether to target this smaller trophy or not – is that those fans believe it should be them leading the way in the Premier League. The AFTV-peddled doubts as to whether Arteta is the man to take them forward in the last few weeks are harboured through a toys-out-of-the-pram belief that they had earned the right to be the next team to win the title after Manchester City having been their closest rivals in the last two seasons. Guys, it doesn’t work like that.
Comparisons with Jose Mourinho and Tony Pulis haven’t aided Arteta amid the growing narrative that he’s taken Arsenal as far as he can, and neither will the first-half showing here, but his perfectly reasonable view will be that winning the Carabao Cup will barely move the dial in terms of his standing as Arsenal manager.
He would have been battered by the fans and media had he not made significant changes to the starting lineup here and then failed to beat Palace in the Premier League on Saturday, with a lack of rotation a much-used stick to beat him with.
Many Arsenal fans would have agreed with his selection, chiefly in order to give his star players a rest, but also in a bid to get the second string somewhere closer to the required level to help them in more important games. But nods of agreement turned to shakes of prescience after less than four minutes: eight changes was always going to be too many.
It’s feast or famine for Jakub Kiwior. We can absolutely understand why Napoli and Juventus are interested on the basis of performances like the one he put in against Monaco last weekbut if the Gunners hope to secure a decent fee from Serie A in January they’ll hope recruitment chiefs weren’t watching here.
Jean-Philippe Mateta wasn’t even looking as Dean Henderson’s long ball flew towards him tussling with the centre-back. We say tussling, the Palace striker didn’t need to do much at all for Kiwior to lose all spatial awareness and allow the ball to bounce between them, at which point he had no hope against Mateta, who held Kiwior off as though he was a shire horse swatting a fly with his tail before slotting the ball past David Raya.
Kiwior did the same thing three minutes later, losing the flight of the ball, this time against Ismaila Sarr, and generally endured a harrowing evening in what can at best be described as a makeshift Arsenal back four, alongside a defender who’s never played at centre-back for the club, a midfielder at right-back and a left-back who’s not made an appearance for the Gunners since May 2023.
Most of the team looked as though they hadn’t played for Arsenal in that long, with the Odegaard, Bukayo Saka or bust claims boosted by a first half without them in which the home side created nothing, with Dean Henderson’s save from a Raheem Sterling free-kick the only moment of promise.
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The game predictably changed when Odegaard came on at half-time, and although William Saliba’s introduction for Thomas Partey also played its part in turning the tide in Arsenal’s favour, with Jurrien Timber nominally switching to right-back and making a difference when charging into midfield to outnumber Palace, it was the captain’s between-the-lines antics which had the visitors chasing their tails.
He played the pass into Gabriel Jesus, who took one touch to get away from Trevoh Chalobah – who perhaps should have done better – before dinking the ball delightfully over Henderson.
Then Bukayo Saka, the second half of Arsenal’s whole, came on and played Jesus in for his second after a sublime touch and reverse pass made it an assist apiece for Bonnie and Clyde before Bonnie got another one.
Doubt that would have shrouded Jesus’ run on goal from halfway having been played through by Odegaard had evaporated thanks to his first two goals of the evening, and his hat-trick was key to victory here – as Eddie Nketiah scored soon after with a quite brilliant header on what turned out to be a night for backup Arsenal strikers past and present – and may well prove to be hugely significant for the rest of the season, as Arteta searches for attacking quality beyond the world class pair who came off the bench to save them here.
And while absurd calls for Arteta to be sacked won’t increase in traction thanks to a hugely dominant second half display, they will rumble on in the deepest depths of social media because of a team selection that makes sense but is a means to question him and because of their absolute reliance on Odegaard and Saka, without whom they looked listless and carried no threat whatsoever.
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