Patrick picks holes in Arteta’s process
VIEIRA HURTS FORMER CLUB’S TOP-FOUR PUSH
CRYSTAL PALACE 3 ARSENAL 0
IN just 90 minutes Patrick Vieira used the same competitive relentlessness he showed as a player to unpick all of the failings Mikel Arteta has been diligently patching over in 2022.
Arsenal’s re-emergence as contenders for Champions League football has been built on some magnificent football.
But the first lesson Crystal Palace handed out was that you have to earn that right to play.
The energy of Conor Gallagher, the strength of Cheikhou Kouyate, the pace of Jeffrey Schlupp – the Gunners did not have a moment to think, let alone play their neat inter-passing football.
But when the home side got the ball, they knew exactly what to do with it.
With Wilfried Zaha flying on one wing and Jordan Ayew playing with intelligence in the other channel, Palace were always on top.
Sure enough, they took the lead in the 16th minute with the simplest of set-piece goals. Gallagher swung a free-kick in deep towards the far post, Gabriel missed his header and Joachim Andersen’s header back home was diverted into the empty net by the unmarked Jean-Philippe Mateta.
It got worse for Arsenal eight minutes later. It was Andersen again with the assist, which Gabriel needlessly dived in on and missed completely. With a Zen-like presence of mind, Ayew’s first touch was perfect and with his second he stroked the ball in.
A moment in the 38th minute typified the match.
Thomas Partey stood with options right and left of him after a rare Palace mistake and moments later, after a lightning Zaha counter-attack, Mateta was stinging the hands of Aaron Ramsdale. Gabriel Martinelli was thrown on at half-time. Indeed,Arsenal were so early back on to the pitch for the second half Palace’s giant eagle mascots were still doing half-time entertainment.
It might have been a fairer contest.
Arsenal looked marginally better in a 3-4-3 going forward, but Palace continued to test them, with Ramsdale needing to be strong to keep out an Andersen-free kick.
Their frustration poured out through every exasperated fistthump into the pitch and this is the element that is still missing from Arteta’s ‘process’.
The ability to dig deep enough to win when the odds are stacked against them.
The mental focus, so that when the big chance comes, as it did to Martin Odegaard in the 67th minute, you find the back of the net instead of scuffing your shot wide.
Instead, it was no surprise that when Zaha was mown down minutes later while teasing the Arsenal defence on a rare counter-attack, the giant scythe belonged to that same annoyed figure of Odegaard.
By contrast, the Palace talisman’s head was cool as ever to make it 3-0.