Arteta buoyant for title challenge as Arsenal again hit five
Crystal Palace (1) 1 v Arsenal (3) 5
By Kaz Mochlinski at Selhurst Park
Premier League
Matchweek 17
Talking Points
Arsenal could have some significant momentum beginning to build at a crucial time in the calendar, after coming away from Crystal Palace with their biggest league victory of the season.
It was a performance which was sufficient to impress even Mikel Arteta, who was in an exceptionally buoyant mood afterwards, declaring about the title race: “For us, it’s on.”
The Gunners’ head coach acknowledged that Liverpool still have a clear advantage in the Premier League, but he has been unequivocally encouraged by his team’s recent resilience.
“At the moment, we are not there yet, and they have a few games in hand. It’s so difficult for any team to win it. In any competition, anything can happen.
“We want to put ourselves right in there, and, if we compete in the way we are competing every single game, let’s see what happens.”
Arsenal were helped by the home side not paying attention to the pre-match warning from the Crystal Palace manager, Oliver Glasner, that “Most of the chances are coming from their right side.”
Within less than six minutes, Bukayo Saka had conjured a typically threatening right-wing run and cross for Gabriel Jesus to finish at the far post. It was the Brazilian’s first goal in the Premier League since January.
Inside a quarter of an hour of the game, Gabriel Jesus added a second, once more sweetly-struck first-time and perfectly-placed, giving Palace’s in-form goalkeeper Dean Henderson no real chance of stopping it.
Only hitting the post, plus a superb second half save by Henderson, denied the resurgent forward a repeat hat-trick against Palace in the space of four days, following the 3-2 home win in the League Cup quarter-finals.
And both those Gabriel Jesus efforts on goal still led directly to Arsenal scoring, through Kai Havertz and Gabriel Martinelli. Havertz’s contribution made him the Gunners’ top scorer in the league this season with six.
Perhaps the most intriguing statistic from the Saturday evening encounter is that Gabriel Jesus has never lost any of the 61 Premier League matches in which he has scored, extending his sequence now to 56 wins and five draws.
His second goal at Selhurst Park was Arsenal’s 50th in the Premier League from a corner since Nicolas Jover joined the Gunners as set-piece coach in 2021 - the most of any club in the competition during this time.
In all, Arsenal have scored 88 Premier League goals in 2024, creating a new club record by surpassing the 86 that they managed in both 2004 and 2009. Much of it is down to their captain, Martin Ødegaard.
Since his return to the starting XI six weeks ago following a troublesome ankle injury, Arsenal are unbeaten in 10 games, winning seven. And it has come at a challenging time of the year, mostly playing twice a week.
Ødegaard enables Arteta to smoothly switch between a 4-2-3-1 formation and 4–1-4-1, which the Arsenal boss has been increasingly employing this season. At Palace, the Norwegian started further back in the double-pivot, before being pushed up to inside-right.
It worked even better when Declan Rice came on from the subs’ bench for the final half an hour, as, on this occasion, Arsenal did not sit back and conserve their advantage but looked to seize an opportunity to improve their goal difference.
They were able to add two goals in this time, including notably Rice’s first in the league this season, setting another record by scoring five goals for the sixth time in away matches in all competitions this year, becoming the first top-flight side to achieve that in English football history.
With Ødegaard back in the side, they have faced four London derbies in consecutive Premier League away games, drawing 1-1 twice in SW6, at Chelsea and Fulham, plus putting five past both West Ham United and Crystal Palace.
Usually local derby matches can be especially testing, but Arsenal have now not lost any of their past 10 against London rivals in the league, remaining unbeaten in 2024, which should give them additional encouragement with their next trip being to Brentford on New Year’s Day.
In a quirk of the fixture lists, Arsenal have had their travelling cut down currently, in December playing only in the capital city, in the midst of almost six weeks without any game out of town - and none in the Premier League for nine weeks.
On this visit to Selhurst Park, the Gunners inflicted Palace’s worst defeat of the season at a time when the hosts had been in excellent form, having gone five Premier League matches unbeaten, and losing only one of their previous eight games in the competition.
Although Palace’s good run had edged them away from the relegation zone, they are by no means completely clear yet, to a large extent due to still having won just once at home in the league during the 2024-25 campaign to date.
There were significant extenuating circumstances on this occasion, with the long-term absence through injury of Adam Wharton in midfield added to by being deprived of the vital attacking abilities of Eberechi Eze.
How Palace supporters would love to have had even only one out of Eze, Michael Olise and Wilfried Zaha on the pitch instead of watching from the stands, with the latter two not having picked the best moment to come back and visit their old club.
Hopes of holding on to Eze plus strengthening the squad have risen with reports of recent progress in part-owner John Textor’s efforts to sell his 45% stake in Palace for about £230 million to a group led by local South London businessmen with financing from Abu Dhabi.
Glasner believes that the team he has right now are developing in a positive way despite some setbacks. But he was frustrated by Arsenal’s key third and fourth goals both coming at moments when Palace were clearly on top and testing their opponents.
In addition to Martinelli scoring for 4-1, he made the goal for 3-1 from the right wing position which he took up when Saka was forced to go off with a hamstring injury after barely 23 minutes - the third time that such a problem has occurred lately.
It has been happening around once a month, causing Saka to miss the match at Bournemouth in October and then to complain about it again after playing against Chelsea in November, before the latest setback now in December.
Arsenal fans have wondered for a while why Arteta does not switch his wingers more often, with Martinelli’s enforced move to the right flank at Crystal Palace providing proof that he can benefit from Ødegaard’s playmaking on that side like Saka.
There may be some small consolation in this for the Gunners, after Saka was seen leaving the Selhurst Park dressing room area on crutches after the game, with an extended layoff seeming inevitable.
Another Arteta anxiety will be about important players adapting to new parenting demands, with Havertz’s goal celebration copying Gabriel Jesus’s from the previous match in referring to their partners’ pregnancies, while Ødegaard is a third Arsenal star who has been concurrently awaiting a baby.
However, nothing could seriously detract from the delight of Arteta reaching the landmark of five years in charge of Arsenal with a five-goal performance which was suitably celebratory and something to savour.
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