Impressive victory keeps the momentum going

Well, you’ll take that, right?

Arsenal made 7 changes against a very good Leicester team and came out worthy victors.

It wasn’t the prettiest of games, but it was a dogged hard-fought victory with plenty of positives.

Firstly, we’re back to winn… oh, wait, we beat West Ham. Felt like a loss. We’re back to winning with purpose after a grubby blip at the weekend.

Secondly, the team put their all into a comp most don’t really care about. I know that should be mandatory, but it isn’t always in this game. I like that everyone is fired up and ready to take their chance whenever it is offered up.

I’ll stop doing this numerically now. I was extremely happy to see Eddie back on the scoresheet after scoring the ugliest goal of the season. He’s a confidence player. You know he’ll always work hard and do the dirty work, but things just haven’t happened for him in front of goal. Well, he scored against West Ham for the winner, and he did the same tonight after connecting with Bellerin’s mazy run/pass, fumbling the ball into the net from close range.

Pepe has yet to find what his true purpose is going to be in this Arteta side, but he’s giving it a go. He’s very unconentional with the way he moves the ball, but you can see there’s a player waiting to burst out at some point. He’s fast, he can breeze past people, he just struggles with his end product.  Not sure he landed the assist tonight, but his shot/cross that hit the post caused and own goal. I’m sure there’s some fancy stat you can attribute to him.

Bernd Leno showed a little more confidence. He came for a couple of looping crosses that must have been tough in the wind and rain. I’d still like his handling to be a little better. He tipped a shot into danger and he flapped a cross in the second half. It’s early days, he was out injured for a while, so it might take some time to see peak Bernd.

Kola shouldn’t keep getting games. He’s not focused nor is he good enough. He lost a runner with lazy marking and it could of cost us. I did love to David Luiz having a pop at him. In general, it was good to see him back in the side, he was having a heated mentoring session on the way to the tunnel with Saka at half time as well.

Talking of Saka, the kid is absolutely class. He put on a much better show this evening.

Last point. Matteo and Mesut. Left behind. They can’t even make the League Cup. They need to find new clubs. This is ruthless behaviour, but smart. Bring two people that don’t do what you need them to do in for a cup game, and, well, it shows you don’t care about the game. We won. Our 7th domestic cup win in a row. Can’t argue they needed to be included, can you?

Overall, that is a great win. It’s the exact sort of momentum you’ll take going into the game against Liverpool. Most of the players on the pitch put their hats in the ring for selection next Monday. That’s all you can ask.

Short one today, see you in the comments. x