Arsenal: Raya, Tomiyasu, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko, Trossard, Rice, Jorginho, Saka, Havertz, Martinelli
Subs: Ramsdale, Nketiah, Kiwior, Vieira, Nelson, Elneny, Ibrahim, Sagoe Jr, Walters
Arsenal faced a different Burnley team of what we used to know on Saturday. Under the stewardship of their manager Vincent Kompany, they play less direct and passing game yet still disciplined enough to give us hard time in the opening part of the game.
They sat deep and defended well and their goalkeeper was on top form, making a world-class save from Bukayo Saka’s instant right-footed shot from close range.
Towards the end of the first half we pushed on with Gabriel Martinelli on top form, giving their right back a torrid time. It was he who was the architect for our opening goal by finding Oleksandr Zinchenko who sent in a cross. Saka attacked and headed on towards Trossard, who was brave to nod it home at the near post and crushing his forearm with the post in the process. He was alright to continue after a lengthy treatment.
The connection between him and Saka is really quite something. All six of his goals this season, and the only goal he scored last season, have all come from Saka assists.
Burnley opened up a bit in the second half and they were rewarded with an equaliser. Unusually, Tomiyasu wasn’t strong enough when Koleosho burst into our box from the side. His cross was cleared but the shot from Josh Brownhill hit Gabriel’s heel and wrong-footed Raya.
Luckily our response was quick. From another of many corner kicks we had during the game, Trossard cross was curled in and Saliba headed in from a close range to make it 2-1.
Mikel Arteta made a change almost straight away, taking off ineffective Havertz and putting on Fabio Vieira. He was not any better and to make matters worse he got a deserved red card for a knee high challenge. Arteta was not happy as we had to play the last 10 minutes with a man short.
The Arsenal manager didn’t need to worry as Zinchenko came up with a goal of the match with a sensational scissors kick. What a goal to wrap up the 3 points.
Afterwards, Mikel Arteta said:
“I’m really happy with the result, especially with the performance after playing 72 hours ago, with the last three games, how we played against Newcastle, how we played against Sevilla, how we played today, how dominant we were against teams who are very hard to dominant the amount of situations that we dominated, I think we fully deserved to win the game.”
This game showed us how much we missed Odergaard’s influence. The team looked unbalanced and right hand side of the team looked weaker. That probably was the reason why Saka had one his quitter game.
Arsenal leapfrogged Tottenham into third place in the Premier League a point behind leaders Manchester City.
