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Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction
Thank you David Raya. Not just for making an incredible double save from Atalanta’s second half penalty, but for saving us from a couple of day of navel-gazing and introspection ahead of Sunday’s trip to Man City. There’s enough to consider already, doing it with the sting of defeat would have made it a lot more difficult.
It’s very hard to know what to say about last night, because so little actually happened. Mikel Arteta brought Declan Rice back into midfield at the expense of Jorginho, while Gabriel Jesus came in for Leandro Trossard up front. Our best/only chance of the first half came from a free kick just outside the box. Bukayo Saka went low, the keeper made a good save to stop the initial effort, then blocked Thomas Partey’s follow-up.
And … that was kinda it. The rest of the half was essentially two teams cancelling each other out. No question Atalanta made it very difficult for us, they are a tough team to play against, but at the same time we didn’t do enough to cause them problems. Nor did they particularly trouble us at the back. We couldn’t get the ball through the lines, the forwards had scant service in areas where they might cause the opposition problems, and on the rare occasion we had a sight of goal, we fluffed our lines.
Gabriel Martinelli shot over for us, Charles De Ketelaere shot over for them after a nice passage of play, but by half-time it was possibly the least interesting game of football Arsenal have been involved in for some time. There were shades of last season’s away game against Porto, but where they made it hard for us through relentless short-man syndrome cynicism, Atalanta’s man to man system was the difficulty we faced.
Early in the second half, the home side were awarded a penalty when Ederson got beyond Partey too easily (this recurring theme continues to vex me), and the Arsenal midfielder clipped his heel as he went into the box. There was a…
Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/09/atalanta-0-0-arsenal-raya-light/
Author : arseblog
Publish date : 2024-09-20 06:36:01
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