The Gunners tremble after Tomiyasu’s red card, but bring home the three points with a penalty from the captain
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dchinellato
– London
Martin Ødegaard is glacial in converting the decisive penalty in the 53rd minute. Arsenal are solid in resisting 10 against 11 for the last half hour, after Takehiro Tomiyasu was sent off for a second yellow card in the 67th minute. And Arteta, when the referee blows his whistle three times after 8′ of stoppage time, celebrates as if he had won a decisive match, not the second day of the Premier League. These are the highlights of the night at Selhurst Park, the one in which the Gunners beat Crystal Palace 1-0 and keep up with Brighton and Manchester City, the only other teams with full points after the first two days of the Premier League. Arsenal made the match but clashed for a long time with the splendid defensive wall set up by Roy Hodgson, the oldest coach in the history of the Premier League (76 years old on 9 August) who had created the right script at his Palace for flaws good figure against one of the powers of England.
THE KEYS
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Arsenal is still a work in progress. He’s working on the new 3-2-4-1 designed by Arteta, with summer additions Declan Rice and Kai Havertz (the other new one, Jurrien Timber, broke his ACL in his first game) who are both still learning how the Gunners that the new game system. The former Chelsea German is the one most in difficulty: Arteta has once again asked him to be creative in the middle of the field, behind center forward Eddie Nketiah (good at getting the decisive penalty, letting Sam Johnstone lay him down in one of the few mistakes in the Palace defence), but Havertz still hasn’t figured out how to pair up with captain Ødegaard. The best among the Gunners was Thomas Partey, still fundamental in the hybrid role of right-back when the team defends and playmaker when attacking. Palace played the game they were supposed to: no frills, careful and orderly defense in the first half. The sending-off, more than the penalty, was the turning point: Arsenal covered up, but Hodgson’s team, which now had the game in hand, was unable to apply the same order in attack that it had in defence. And he collected his first defeat of the season.
THE MATCH
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Nketiah has the two best chances of a blocked first half, but first he takes the post (29′) then raises the lob too much face to face with Johnstone (36′), then also good on Ødegaard. The 0-0 only lasted until the 53rd minute, when Ødegaard displaced Johnstone from the penalty spot, author of the foul on Nketiah who had convinced the referee to grant the penalty. In the 67th minute the Gunners were down to 10 for Tomiyasu’s red card and shortly after Arteta was forced to remove Martinelli to insert Gabriel in defence. The guests close in, Hodgson asks his players to take control of the game but the goals don’t come. And the penalty converted by the glacial Ødegaard remains the only difference between Arsenal and Palace.
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