Arsenal_AM_Episode19_Did anyone else know the key to happiness was Scoring goals?

An emphatic 3 nil win against Fulham, we put them to the sword in one half of football and we loved it!

We finally got to see Myles Lewis-Skelly in midfield and he was near perfect, Starboy returned to the starting line up and did what he does with a smile. 

Gyok, scored two and received his flowers. 

The club honoured Per Mertesacker for 15 years of service so thank you Per

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Good morning from the top of the table, six points clear, and a lovely 3-0 win against Fulham. Who knew that the the method to feeling good about life and everything that's going on is to be top of the table scoring goals, not conceding any, racking up uh goal difference, and just taking taking the game's two teams. Yeah, I think we all did. No, it's uh it's it's a great, great morning. A a resounding 3-0 win against Fulham yesterday was just what the doctor ordered. Just looking at some of the key stats we had, we dominated possession fift fifty-four point three percent, had eighteen shots, nine of which on target, and we just really pushed them back, dominated the first half, and controlled the second half fairly comfortably. I think if you look back at a lot of the title run-ins for the Invincibles and other teams, quite often you would see maybe a 3-0 first half performance and just conserve energy and keep the keep the opponent at arm's length for the second half. I think we definitely did that yesterday, and again, we're able to rest players. Rice went off. We we were able to put in Miles Lewis Kelly to give Zubermendi some time. We got Saka on for a half, and we'll get into him later, but I couldn't think of a better list of achievements than we saw today, just to have the feel-good factor swell around the club. We have a game in three days against Atletico Madrid and then we have potentially four games left in our season, all spread out with little or no unexpected drama, hopefully. So we are set up for the run in. After the city game, I said that I didn't think both teams will go five and five. I still believe that. And we've done that, we've done our job. We've nullified their goals scored, we've increased our goal difference, and they do have a tough game on Monday evening, we hope, against Everton, at least on paper, it should be. Now again, they've had more time to prepare, but so have Everton. So I think should Everton get a draw in that game, the feel-good factor that would flow through our squad going into Tuesday would be such a turbocharge to everybody's mentality that that I I don't believe that it could be anything other than a good thing. So with that, let's get into the starting lineup and the game. The starting lineup had Miles Low Scale in midfield. I think everybody has wanted to see this for a while, and now that we have seen it, you know, his stats for the day were incredible. You know, 97% pass accuracy, 79 touches, nine ground jewels. He he won six of those, recovered six balls, four passes into the final third, and four fouls won. Now, again, Miles who was scary Skelly wins frees and fouls every game, so that's not a big one. But the mentality and the difference in midfield was evident. Looking at the Arsenal.com interview with him. He sp he shouted out that you essentially needed to set a tone in midfield, and he definitely did that. He kept the ball incredibly well, you know, the pass accuracy at 97% is you can't argue with that really. Um again, I don't think there was anything that you would put on a highlights reel, but he did everything that was asked, and probably Fulham were the right team for him. You know, they're not gonna overpower him, they're not gonna dominate him, and you know that they don't have a Rodri type or a Bernardo Silva type who will find other ways to put you under stress and under pressure. So I think that was an absolutely excellent start for him, and you know, you could see after the game the embrace between himself and Arteta showed how much it meant to both of them, which was great. Ricky Cadlefury in at left back, and he he got the full 90, which is great. I think he offers so so much to us in an attacking sense. Um, yeah, he had a goal disallowed, he hit the crossbar, and he causes such levels of havoc for opponents. It's wonderful to see. Now I didn't see whether Miles Luschetti drifted back into the left back to act as cover frame when he goes to become the left back then, but I imagine he he did, but so it's not something I will look up. But again, great to see a great option, and again, I think against our opponents in the coming weeks, Burnley Palace. I'm a little bit hesitant on West Ham whether I'd play him there or not. Again, Bowen is a strong strong guy for West Ham. Maybe he can cap his the way there, but again, that's not one for today. So that was just an excellent performance from Calafuri, and probably one we would have liked to see. And if you look at a lot of our best attacking performances, they probably came from August to October when Calafiori was a confirmed starter every day, so it's great to get him back for the tail end of the season, even just having as an option. Another huge person to come back today was Bagay Osaka, who just put everything on on toast. We saw for 45-minute cameo of him today where he scored, he set up one, and he tormented the Fulham players. And it was interesting to see that Yaker has had probably one of his best first performances with a technical trio of SD Trossard and Saka behind him. You know, the ball retention there, the ability to move players around that maybe we lack when they're not there. And it exposes weaknesses in Yakharis' game that I think we've hammered him for. But I also think we've been very forgiving of him because he's he's been fit, he's been available, so it was great to see him get two goals today, a header and a and a tap in, and again did it did a good 64 minutes for us. So hopefully that bit of rest will will serve us well come Tuesday. Charles again has an assist to his name, and uh actually no, sorry, I may be remembering that wrong. He clipped in the ball for Cala Fury and the Calafury skull was off site, and as soon as I saw it in the replay, I was like, yeah, he's off. But again, it was great, great to even for us to make the chances today that we hadn't been making in recent weeks. Yeah, so just had a quick look at the highlights again. Yagar's uh second goal was a Trossard assist. So again, Trossard showed a few shots and a couple of assisting moments and held on to the ball, moved the ball well. So hopefully he's coming into form as well. But again, it was a step up from what we've seen in recent weeks, and I just think having that as at this time can only serve us well, and if we've suddenly got an attack that's unleashed when we need to score goals, hallelujah! So yeah, I can't um I can't argue with anything really that I saw on the pitch today. Just looking at the pass map for today, we had a our back our our two centre backs were just about the edge of the centre circle, which again pushes the the line up and gives us space to play in behind or to push up and force teams that they can't play in behind us, and it's what we've been crying out for. We've been sitting on our on our 18-yard box far too long, and you know the with Saka being back in into the pitch, we had a slightly a slight right-hand bias, but we still had some very strong play in around the the centre circle quadrant as we moved the ball, you know, just looking at it with a with a good square with Saliba, Gabrielle, Trossard, and Ezra with two pivots in inside that square are V Rice and Miles Luschelli. Getting very close to that square then was Cala Fiori, and again he is an agent of chaos, so let's uh let's get him in there as often as we can when defensively we he's not going to be exposed by by pigs. I think that is his his kryptonite because he's he's not blisteringly quick, but he is very good. So hopefully that we can do that. Substantly we saw um Materwake come on. I don't think he offered very much for us, but I suppose we didn't offer very much in the second half either, and that gave us it we just looked for control. Um you know, we saw Zuberman League Gabriel Jesus come on. Again, I don't think Gabriel Jesus did much or offered us much, but rest of the Yakers for a half hour or so again can't can't be uh can't be bad. And we saw that Zubendi came on for Deccan Rice, again, probably Rice in in need of minding those minutes, and Zubendy also in need of getting the break. And we got some Max Delman come on and play 10, which is an interesting place to be. Again, we had had the capacity to rest etze and also not to force Max to have to track back and be a midfield pivot in the way that maybe Ese or Odegaard would have to be. We you know, we we had we give the you give the young guy the freedom he needs, and again, just it looks like a wonderful talent. Even seeing the players just give the ball to him, you know, they obviously believe in what he can do and what he's capable of, so looking forward to seeing his career. We're very uh lucky to have that, and the final appearance was Muscara coming on for Ben White. I'd be interested to see how we start on Tuesday night because if we're worried about Atletico, you may see a Hincapie Gabriel Saliba Masquera back four, but if we're less worried, you could see White and Calafiore in there, so again we'll we'll get an indication from the of the mindset by those two players. Victor Jock Garris came in for a lot of praise today. Again, he got his 21st goal of the season. He's had 84 shots, he's got a 19 XG, so he's outperformed as XG, and I think as maligned as the player player has been, I don't think anybody actually feels he's let us down in terms of his availability, and I think everything he does on the pitch has been backed with an honesty of effort. So I'm delighted for him to get his his props today, and hopefully we'll see him perform highly against Burnley Palace and West Ham. Based on his time with sporting, you know, he he does normally perform well against these without trying to be disrespectful, lower quality opposition. So again, if he's not knocking in the goals over the next uh few weeks, it can only be good for us. In the second half, then we really only had I can only really recall the the shot or the header from Calafury that hit Leno and gave us hit hit crossbar and that was it. So I don't again I just think we we managed the game out, we kept kept control, and I had basically thought to myself, would I prefer 4-1 or 3-0? And I settled on a 3-0 for me. I just think keeping those clean sheets are is vital as well for that back line, they they thrive on it, and I think getting a run of clean sheets between here and the here and the end of the season puts us in a very very strong position no matter what any other team brings. And that's a wrap on the game. If you want to get in touch with the show, you can get me on Instagram at Arsenal underscore am underscore pod and you can get me on BSky at freddylj.bsky.social today the club honoured Permat Martazaker and after 15 years of the club, he obviously signed for us in 2011 after we got thoroughly thumped by um Manchester United at all Trafford. He brought a lot of stability and cam to us defensively. He scored against Tottenham. But um yeah, I think he'd done a great job on the pitch with whi winning FA Cups and bringing us forward in that way. What he's done at the Academy level I think has been nothing short of brilliant. You look at his job having taken over from Liam Brady and others was to get hail end people into the first team, and o over his period of time you've seen Saka, Emma Smithrow, Ethan Max, um Myles Lewis Skelly and others get into the first team, and one of the things that he set out to do was to have more rounded individuals, better people coming out of our academy. And if you look at the guys who've come out of the academy during his period of time versus maybe some of the people that have gone before him, you know, think uh the likes of Anthony Stokes and uh others who have got into a lot of trouble off the pitch, maybe not lived up to their playing hype and playing potential. I think we just need to give Mart Zacker a lot of praise and a lot of credit, and you know, I just think it's it's brilliant that the club were able to honour him. He's been a great uh servant to the club, and I'm sure it'll be in good hands without him, and I wish him the very best in the future. Until tomorrow, have a good one.