Pre-season concludes with Lyon win

Morning.

Pre-season concluded yesterday with a 2-0 win over Lyon in the Emirates Cup, both goals coming from set-pieces in the first half. Declan Rice delivered both corners, first for William Saliba to head home, then Gabriel to double the lead. Nicolas Jover got his wallet back as a reward for his continued sterling work.

I thought we looked sharp and bright for the most part, but not quite decisive enough in certain moments in open play which would have made the scoreline more emphatic. Gabriel Martinelli did well enough on the left, just that final action was missing to make his performance a really encouraging one. I suppose you could worry that it’s just a continuation of what we got from him last season, but for me he looked a bit more like the exciting, impactful Martinelli, and hopefully as he builds proper match fitness that end product will return too.

On the other side, Bukayo Saka looked a touch rusty, but you can see immediately what a difference he makes to the team, and these minutes will be useful for him going into the opening game against Wolves. There was also a first look at new signing Riccardo Calafiori, who played a bit at left-back and then at centre-half when Mikel Arteta made a host of changes late on. These are the very early days of what we hope will be a long Arsenal career, and I think he’s a player who we’ll see eased into action over the course of the new campaign.

There was supposed to be a penalty shoot-out at the end but then there wasn’t, suggestions Lyon decided against it make sense. Arteta wanted this for every pre-season game, some teams were happy to oblige, others not so much. Liverpool, for example, didn’t want any part of it for the game in Philadelphia.

Afterwards, Mikel Arteta reflected on the pre-season as a whole, saying:

I think overall it’s been a really positive pre-season with the tour and the club and a lot of people put a lot of effort into making it work. I think it was a success again and then…

Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/08/pre-season-concludes-with-lyon-win/

Author : arseblog

Publish date : 2024-08-12 06:11:45

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