Result: Arsenal 3-0 AFC Wimbledon
Competition: Carabao Cup third round
Date: 22 September 2021
Venue: Emirates Stadium
Arsenal: Leno, Cedric, Mari, Holding, Tavares, Maitland-Niles, Sambi, Partey, Nketiah, Martinelli, Lacazette
Subs: Hein, Kolasinac, Chambers, Smith Rowe, Elneny, Saka, Balogun
Alex Lacazette’s early penalty and goals from Emile Smith Rowe and Eddie Nketiah helped Arsenal to a 3-0 win against AFC Wimbledon in the Carabao Cup third round.
Mikel Arteta made 10 changes from the side that beat Burnley at the weekend – only Thomas Partey retained his place – and it showed as the Gunners produced a disjointed opening 45 minutes in which their only shot on target was Lacazette’s converted spot-kick awarded for a foul on Gabriel Martinelli. At the other end, Bernd Leno had a watching brief as the defence kept our League One opponents at arm’s length.
Arsenal perked up after the break with the introduction of Emile Smith Rowe and Bukayo Saka. After a spell in which the Gunners frontline did their best to fluff their lines, the former netted a scruffy close-range effort – his first of the season – before the latter teed up Cedric for a cutback that Eddie Nketiah converted with a classy backheel finish. Saka twice went close to extending the lead with decent efforts from range.
Nketiah 👀 pic.twitter.com/At3SJYRGbC
— Terje (@ArsenalTerje) September 22, 2021
While previous ties at this stage of the competition have been treated as an opportunity to blood Academy kids, there were no debuts this evening. Instead, the minutes went to fringe members of the squad who’ve spent most of the last 10 weeks on the bench. Some impressed more than others, including new left-back Nuno Tavares.
The Gunners reward is a home clash with Leeds United in the week commencing 25 October, Next up, it’s Sp*rs in the North London derby.
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2 min highlight package here:
http://www.replaymatches.net/2021/09/arsenal-vs-afc-wimbledon-highlights-22.html
Best I could find.
Cheers for sharing. Wow, some of those Saka highlights are beauties.
Eddie off the bench against Spurs for our 5th goal of the match 😀
Saka on the right!
He looks so much more dangerous from there!
Southgate seems nailed Saka on the right for England don’t understand why Arteta can’t play him there. It can also boil down to the fact that both Saka and Pepe can’t be playing at the same time. Maybe it’s time to unleash Martinelli from left but he ain’t got no rhythm with Tierney atm.
Saka on the right and Pepe on the left is actually a very lethal attack. I think pepe played a lot on the left last season and was phenomenal. Martinelli needs game time to be match fit. Also, I would have really loved to see Patino in midfield. Hopefully he gets some chances soon.
Totally agree. Saka RW, Odegaard as #10, ESR at LW (Tierney overlapping) and Konga-Partey behind them.
I don’t think Auba and Pepe are a great duo to play together and I see our strongest, most balanced team leaving Arteta with a choice between Auba and Pepe up top.
Where does that leave Lacazette? Because everyone he plays I seem to obverse that he links up better with those around him than Aubameyang
*everytime
Not sure if that is because he was playing deeper or not but I completely agree his link up play is better than Aubas.
There is no doubt laca has better link up play than auba. No doubt whatsoever. But laca has a lot of limitations: not that fast, doesn’t get into space anywhere near the amount auba does and overall gets way less chances. Theoretically that should mean others get more chances, but I don’t necessarily see that play out much either. And it seems we’re moving on from laca, which IMO is a decent decision (we need better and younger).
Just watched the Smith goal again. Anyone think Cedric freaked him out with the celebration?
Decent result. I thought the game lacked a little quality but there were green shoots of fluidity at times. Just after the badger was released onto the field and caused a pitch side TB shot for Cedric, I thought we beat the press really well. And Mari jumping on Holding’s shoulders to clear that looping cross was really quick thinking from the Spaniard, although Holding didn’t seem to know much about it. Overall, I thought we dominated possession apart from those seven minutes when the Wimbledon midfielder sat on the ball on the halfway line and wouldn’t budge until we… Read more »
Being greedy i wanted more goals. But decent performance and onto the spuds.
They look like they’re singing from the soul, in that photo…like a David Bowie and Mick Jagger video
Satisfying feeling getting this one over the line.. Hopefully building a momentum for better performance in coming matches…
Yay! Another win, another clean sheet, and more than 1 scored
Boo! No place in the squad for Charlie Patino
Damn blogs, what happened to you? Hope you’re alright.
I’ll be honest I felt incomplete without your usual prompt match reports and so on. I realised in that short time that I take you and arseblog for granted, I apologise for this and promise to appreciate you more. Love.
Sorry for the late report. Blogs didn’t have a stream and I had to get home from the match first!
No need to apologise, I really wanted to watch game today but work got in the way. So was looking forward to your match reports player ratings etc. Damn near quit my job today so I’m going through the motions
Hope all is well with you and you have sorted it out.
There was no way to watch the game anyway other than in the stadium, so you literally missed nothing.
Hang in there Scwibble. Hope you’re okay and hope the win lifted your spirits a bit.
Thank for all of your hard work AAllen, blogs, and the rest of the crew!
Yeah the win cheered me up, thanks guys.
Hang in there, man. Stay resilient, don’t take shit from anybody, and find joy in small things. Love from all Gooners.
Blogs ever consider relocating?
Heard Martinelli played really well. He is one player I am hoping gets back to full fitness. Partey, too. Glad he asked to play to continue building his fitness.
I thought he got into a lot of dangerous areas & the LB couldn’t really deal with him. His decision making in the final 3rd could’ve been better, but overall he had a decent match.
Before ESR & Saka came on I thought Gabby & Nuno were the standouts
I have to say, as much as I love Martinelli, bar a couple of early runs, particularly the one for the pen, I don’t think he played well. To be fair I don’t think RW suits him, but he lost the ball quite a few times and didn’t manage to prove a very effective outlet despite us mainly attacking up his side, the difference when Saka came on was immediately SO noticeable in his movement and quality of passing which just wasn’t there with Gabi
Though I don’t think he had a particularly bad game, I agree the difference when Saka came on was huge.
We immediately looked so much more likely to score.
I watched the game, some lad at the stadium was streaming it from his phone onto twitter..
At halftime he put his bank account details up and people deposited money. It was hilarious, eventually he ran out of batteries though..
Opportunity in adversity lol 😂
The setup (on paper) looked similar to how we played v Burnley, despite the 10 changes.
Wonder if the full game will be put up onto arsenal player at some point?
I want to see how Sambi/Partey/AMN worked together (and then Sambi/ESR/AMN!) – anyone who attended the game care to share how our midfield looked?
Looking forward to the weekend!!
From what I saw behind the goal, it didn’t.
Partey was head and shoulders the classiest player on the pitch, Lakonga was decent plenty of youthful exuberance and unfortunately Maitland-Niles didn’t play that great.
Wimbledon sat deep the entire game, so it wasn’t a great time to see the combination, we could have easily gone with Partey as a single pivot like the weekend and been fine
Thanks I appreciate it! It feels so weird not being able to watch even a replay!
I thought we lacked a bit of creativity with Partey/Sambi/AMN. You could definitely see the difference when ESR came on.
Laca was more quiet than usual, which probably didn’t help as he’s usually good at creating from deep.
Sounds like ESR! Happy he got his goal – hopefully he’ll get a few more this season.
I really hope this kick starts nketiahs season
He was very for practically whole game, giving ball away, moves breaking down, not seeing pass etc. Scores a lovely flick goal with minutes left against championship team two down. Really hope we can get 10 million maybe in January though I doubt anyone will pay that much for him.
Completely disagree, I think Nketia was one of our better players on the night, lots of energy in what was quite a static forward line, pressed very well, got at his fullback well a couple of times and played some good passes. Not a complete performance but probably the best of out starting front three
Saka’s backa… and just in the nick, for Spuds!
Morning, 3.0 sounds convincing, and against premier opposition it probably is, against a side you are expected to win comfortably, 3.0 is still acceptable. Ten changes, fringe players used, getting chances, for those that scored after a while on the bench, must have given the manager food for thought, as goals have been quite rare. Nketias clever footwork goal would have impressed, obviously needs more of them before he’s sold
Tavarez was our stand out player on the night. He looks a quality signing. Cedric huffed and puffed, but he’s so below the standard we need.. AMN got dispossessed a couple of times in midfield, not doing enough to convince in that position for me. In fairness he did manage to track back and recover the balls he’s lost..
Partey looked a little leggy, and I just spent the whole time worried some over zealous Wimbledon player would take him out.
Martinelli was getting hacked to fuck all night too, but was putting himself about winning the pen.
Listening to the Arsenal commentary team it sounded like Gabi was playing really well but being kicked all the time. He was hobbling at half time and they weren’t sure if he would come back on for the second half. I worry about him, every time he gets back to fitness he gets smashed again, I really hope he’s OK.
The Nketiah goal was very well taken, but the other thing that stood out for me was watching Lacazette’s reaction. Gave the lad a solid round of applause. I don’t know why but that felt really good. It gives me a bit more positivity about the direction the team is going as a team.
It was the solidarity of the exiled.
Both of them will be gone next summer.
Laca is class. He may not be what we need now to progress, but his commitment and quality were always evident, and he seems a very positive influence on our younger players.
Shame there wasn’t any result or info available here until the noisy neighbours had completed their penalty shoot out…. wasn’t last night a match day???
Apologies that your free service wasn’t what you paid for.
Happy for the win.Its also welcome news that Man U are out of the competition.Would have been nice to see Jack get a run out.
Sadly I have to say there was some disgusting scenes outside the ground yesterday. Very dangerous Overcrowding by gate G/H/J. I happened to have been taking my girlfriend to her first ever game, and around this area we were trapped between thousands of people, the gates, and the wall on the outside for around 25minutes as everyone was trying to push their way through literally nobody could move. I’m about to email the club in disgust with their management of this area. 25 years of going to games I’ve never seen anything like it. Luckily I’m 6’2 so wasn’t being… Read more »