Result: Arsenal 2-0 Leicester City
Competition: Premier League
Date: 13th March 2022
Venue: Emirates Stadium
Arsenal: Ramsdale, Cedric, White, Gabriel, Tierney, Partey, Xhaka, Odegaard, Saka, Martinelli, Lacazette
Subs: Leno, Tavares, Holding, Swanson, Lokonga, Elneny, Pepe, Smith-Rowe, Nketiah
Arsenal marched on in their hunt for Champions League football this season, with a 2-0 home win against Leicester on Sunday evening. It was a convincing display from the Gunners who look increasingly confident and ever-more formidable as a collective unit.
Thomas Partey headed home early on relieve the pressure and put Arsenal in control. The home side looked like they could put the game to bed soon after, but couldn’t convert a few chances that came their way. Leicester looked good for the last 15 minutes before the break, but Arsenal stood firm.
In the second half, Arsenal revved up their engine again and put pressure on the Foxes, forcing them back until a Soyuncu handball was given as a penalty (after lengthy VAR review). Lacazette fired the spot-kick home in some style to double their lead and ultimately win the game for the Gunners.
PRE-GAME
Arsenal are being widely talked about as favourites for the highly coveted fourth place trophy this season, with multiple games in hand on those around them. However, games in hand aren’t points on the board and Leicester appeared a good challenge for the Gunners. Brendan Rodgers’ side look somewhat more cohesive than they did for the reverse fixture earlier in the season but Jamie Vardy, who always seems to score against Arsenal, was a big miss for the Foxes.
Mikel Arteta named an unchanged side from the 3-2 victory away at Watford last week. The most notable team news came from the subs bench as Emile Smith-Rowe returned to the squad after missing the trip to Watford due to a positive Covid test. Takehiro Tomiyasu remained out as the club take their time with his rehabilitation.
Arsenal acknowledged the war in Ukraine before the game, paying their respects to the victims and encouraging their fans to join the Ukraine Arsenal Supporters Club in a show of solidarity.
FIRST HALF
A frantic first few minutes saw some passes run astray and a bit of pinball between the two teams, but eventually the game settled into more of a rhythm – with Arsenal trying to impose themselves via possession. Martinelli had a soft shout for a penalty 6 minutes in when Perreira appeared to get hold of his shirt in the area, but nothing was doing. It was the quick-footed Brazilian who had the first clear-cut chance of the game a minute or so later, but his effort was saved and the flag went up not long after.
Saka looked in the mood early on and had a shot blocked after combining with Ødegaard (something we’re seeing more and more of this season). But the first goal came soon after on 12 minutes from the unlikeliest of sources, as Thomas Partey nodded in a Martinelli corner at the near post, and boy did he look happy about it! 1-0 Arsenal.
Partey came close again before the 20 minute mark with a curling, long-range effort that hit the crossbar. Arsenal had Leicester on the ropes for the following few passages of play, but ultimately failed to capitalise on their ever-growing pressure. But Leicester then began to get a foothold in the game and their first real chance came after Harvey Barnes latched onto a Dewsbury-Hall ball, but Ramsdale closed the angle to smother the shot well. Leicester then threatened again a couple of minutes later as Ramsdale palmed a low cross out to James Maddison, who failed to get the ball out of his feet before White expertly swept the ball clear.
Just shy of half an hour in, Kelechi Iheanacho picked up the first yellow card of the game after he caught Gabriel in the face with a flailing arm. Although it probably is just a booking, the frustrating thing for Arsenal is that they are more often than not seen as red card offences. A couple of Leicester corners later and Ramsdale was called into action again as he saved well from a Barnes header. Arsenal dropped off in the final ten minutes of the half and withstood some consistent Leicester pressure to come in with the lead at the break.
SECOND HALF
Arteta’s men started the second half brightly, winning a free-kick in the opposition third and although nothing came from the first ball into the box, the second phase saw White flick the ball just wide. Then on 50 minutes, Martinelli went on an exquisite, weaving run round the outside of the Leicester defence, treading the byline before setting up Lacazette – who was unable to finish.
Then came a long, protracted VAR review after a Partey header from close range appeared to be blocked by Soyuncu’s hand. And what felt like 3 hours later, the referee was sent to the monitor and gave the penalty. There was a strong argument that the apparent prevention of a goalscoring opportunity could’ve yielded a red card, but Thomas’ presence on the line may have saved Soyuncu from an early bath. Arsenal captain Lacazette stood up to take the penalty and dispatched it with some style, emphatically thwacking it into the top corner. 2-0 Arsenal.
A Leicester breakaway on 65 minutes saw the ball fall to Barnes and it looked for all the world that he would despatch the shot and halve the deficit, but Tierney got across to make a superb block. Arsenal resumed control of the match soon after and Ødegaard continued to show his class, pulling the strings with an ease and deftness to his play that almost looked Bergkamp-esque. Arteta made his first substitution with 13 minutes remaining of normal time and it was the electric Martinelli who made way for a returning Smith-Rowe, with the latter receiving a warm welcome back from the home crowd.
Arsenal were professional about seeing out the game, keeping Leicester at arms length with considerable ease. The fans enjoyed some passages of quick, slick passing – cheering each time the ball moved from one player to another. Late substitutions saw Pepe and Nketiah come on to help the run-in to the final whistle.
In the end, it was an impressive win for Arsenal who made it five wins on the bounce. Arteta and his team keep momentum building just at the right time, as up next is Liverpool in midweek and a real litmus test of where this improving young squad are at.
Good result, well deserved. Looking strong throughout the team, working well together, and some decent substitutes. Nice position in the league, hope we can keep our form going v Liverpool.
Superb displays by Ødegard and Partey tonight, very confident under pressure. I think tonight is the best game they have since joining the club.
Always wanted Ødegaard over Maddison last summer, but boy did I have no idea how much better he actually is and how much better he fits into this team.
I love me some of that!
this midfield will be unstoppable with xhaka’s upgrade
Exactly what has Xhaka done wrong since his return from injury. Can you not appreciate what he brings to the team? Great forward passer and has formed a great midfield partnership with Partey. Was brilliant today as he has been since his return.
Xhaxa has done nothing wrong. He brings plenty to the team. Hes even adapting to a new role. Imagine what a better player does for the team.
I daresay that Haaland is a better player then Lacazette. Imagine how much better the team would be.
Never know. Haaland might just reveal some unheard of desire to play for us. Luckily there are several strikers who could possibly replace Laca. They might even score more than 6 goals while being able to link play and all the other facets to Lacas game. Xhaxa is easily replaceable, there are teams in the bottom half of the prem who have better midfielders than Xhaxa. I wouldn’t let either leave just yet though, there experience and leadership is valuable.
Well, didn’t mean to knock Xhaka, thought he was decent today, but come on – he is clearly playing a role that isn’t his strong suit. Yes our midfield has improved since he’s moved into the more advanced role, but yeah sorry I still think we need an upgrade, a different profile. Tbvh – i like xhaka a lot, and I’m inclined to keep him next season as well, but imagine what a more mobile, ball carrying midfielder could do with that space
Doing nothing wrong doesn’t mean an upgrade won’t improve the team. It’s about what he could do better.
There were quite a few times yesterday that showed he’s not at the level of others around him. Somehow though, you saw his brilliance
Amazing win.
I was troubled by the late changes.
Legs will be heavy with Liverpool
Nah 72 hours of recovery with a couple of light training sessions is plenty of time.
considering we haven’t been playing as much as Liverpool have as well
True. If we can’t show up after 3 days of rest (especially given our recent schedule) we might as well stop playing for CL places.
Hi upvoted, but if we were ib CL we’d have a bigger squad
Odegaard was a joy to watch today and Partey is just getting better each game.
the two of them were simply sublime. a joy to watch. we are still a step or two away from controlling games for 90 mins, but man we are looking so good. So much positive play today, and our control in the second half (bar one spell towards the end) was excellent. forgot how fun supporting this club can be, but this squad reminds me every week
A confident Thomas Partey is a joy to behold. The less said about Odegaard, the better.
At some point in that second half, I had goose bumps rising all over my body. We have a team!
My daughter has permission to marry Martin Ødegaard
Even my wife has the same permission
Fuck it I’d marry him myself
Lol. Love that!
Martin Øh-my-gawd!
This is the comment
Forever to be known as 😀
We need a Martin odegaard song!
Get you a teammate who picks bits of grass off your face when you go down injured, like White did to Ramsdale at the end
that was great to see
😂 quality
Odegaard… Unreal.
How die we get Odegaard for thirty million 😊
Just what i was asking…
Absolute joy to watch and partey was in beast mode today roll on Wednesday we’re getting closer to the top teams
Why was nobody else after Partey?
Surely other teams need upgrades in that position Man Utd (cough) Tottenham (cough)
I hope he brings it to Liverpool after his last outing against them.
I agree, but Madrid do have Modric in that role. The way he played against PSG, he might start for them when he’s 40.
Ex S##r’s man but a top draw player.
It’s traditional Arsenal. We find players who don’t fit where they are, so buy them cheap, and give them a home. Bergkamp, Viera, even Henry and Martinelli. All moved to us on the cheap, either to get playing time or away from a career error.
Great win, was worried about this being a banana skin for us.
Some of those passing moves were absolutely disgusting… reminders of why I fell in love with this club in the first place.
Can’t even remember how many times I guffawed after six of their players were within one or two feet or two of ours and they one-touched their way out of it with six or seven beauties. But it was a lot.
A convincing answer for everything Leicester have offered and for once VAR worked in our favor. I love seeing them play, there’s so much confident flair that we were pulling off. It will be a different prospect on Wednesday, though.
Boy did they try and not give it.
I believe the correct phrase is “VAR worked”. Not in “our favor”.
We dont want favors
You’re right. My bad.
VAR Ref: This looks bloody impossible not to give sir
Man 1: Shit!
Man 2: Just give this. Next time, don’t let them show this many replays
Nice to have Albert Steptoe out of the fucking way for once, too.
God I hate that little shit. Thank Christ we didn’t sign him. The little turd.
That was one of the best performances I’ve seen from any player at Arsenal. Odegaard take a bow. TP was sensational too. Leicester do love giving Arsenal number 10s MOM awards
Imagine a left sided Odegaard instead of Xhaka and a top centre forward – this team would be terrifying
Top post.
Have been thinking this myself, for some time.
👍🍺
Liverpool will not be looking forward to playing us, the last few games against them could have gone either way but for a few dodgy mistakes from us.
Pep is phoning Arteta right now!!
Avoid the traditional red card and I feel a win
We have to go for it we’ve nothing to lose
The player I envision there is not a second Odegaard but a Xhaka with pace and maybe better on the ball. Declan Rice is a perfect example.
Where are the anti-Arteta?
Anyways i comment my Reserve till the end of the season
Probably all changed their usernames.
Find the match report and the ratings report from after the Everton game – there was a lot of Arteta Out that night.
To think it was only 3 months ago.
Arteta himself improved
No, Auba left, team was fixed and improved massively without him. System and workrate ist much better now too. Somehow we’re better off now
So Arteta didnt improve?
Exactly.
Why not just enjoy this?
Because they’re too immature to get their heads around the fact that at the start of the season we were bloody awful – and Arteta and the team deserved justified criticism as much as all the plaudits they are now quite rightly entitled to.
Results and performances needed to improve – and they have.
Didn’t we have five players out with Covid? Auba, Laca…
Added to that: injuries, suspensions, players not back from summer tournaments and even players we hadn’t signed yet, meant that we only started 4 of the men who started yesterday, (Not always tlhe same 4, and they ncluding Xakha in every game).
More important that he is proven right
Martin Odegard is unbelievably good at playing football. That is all I came to say.
Obviously Odegaard will take the headlines. But those 2 Ramsdale’s saves + White’s last ditch clearance guaranteed this result. Solid performance by everyone. We gave them the ball more than I would have liked but we were in control most of the game. Welldone to the lads
Partey was class as well
Add a KT clearance to that
White’s distribution from deep to Saka and Martinelli is commonly overlooked. A lot of plan B mix and match begins with him.
At the back, he is a reassuring presence and an anchor for Cedric. I lost count of the number of times he played it out when Cedric was stumped.
So hard to pick a motm today, it was a real team effort.
Saka was electric, Martinelli a constant threat, Odegard the puppet master and behind them Partey bossing the midfield
Odegaard was superb but Partey scored, hit the bar, and won the penalty, so I’d give it to him.
Agreed! Either Partey or Odegaard for me. Most outstanding players on the pitch.
A good, solid performance. Three extremely vital points, especially as we now go into Wednesday night’s game with the Phlegm Spouters.
Partey, Odegaard and Saka simply outstanding.
Plus the VAR guy and the ref will go home gutted that they had no choice but to – eventually – award us a penalty.
Onwards. Let’s keep this going and give Liverpool a game. We owe them.
Well done lads – and that includes the manager. 👍😊
Do you think this referee has a history of being unfair to Arsenal? He refereed two FA Cup finals that we won and sent off a Chelsea player both times. Once, as I’ve said before, he gave a second yellow for simulation–in a Cup final!
Mate….I honestly cannot be bothered to spend my valuable time looking at a fucking ref’s history!! Listen, we’ve always had to crawl over broken glass to get anything from referees since the year dot. Ask yourself why they took so fucking long today over a decision that was blatantly obvious to one and all – especially when Smudger pointed out the best angle on Sky where the trajectory of the ball clearly changed when it was handled. If that’s City, United, Liverpool, Chelsea, the Spuds – anyone but us – it’s a penalty in seconds. Make no mistake, they were… Read more »
I think the delay was over whether it was a yellow or a red not over whether it was a pen.
Great result, really dominant. Hopefully we get the three points against Liverpool and send a very firm message to the rest.
😂😂😂
Why is Lacazette slapping Partey’s head?
Lacazette loves life at arsenal right now.
Doesnt play as a goner.
TBH I think he should be handed a year’s extension so he can at least enjoy one year of CL football (hopefully) which he’s worked had to help us get. We should def get an upgrade meanwhile.
Or it would give another year for Martinelli to develop to see if he could become that upgrade
I like how we practised the low block for the next game. Leicester is just practise…
Exactly my thoughts. Winning while practicing is a great habit. Let’s keep it going.
Partey my motm, goal at the start, unlucky not to score two and constant battling to win the ball.
Partey bossed the midfield, he’s really playing now like the player we thought we were getting. Can’t wait to see Öde and ESR together in front of him.
Majestic, roll on the next games! Haven’t been confident of seeing good football like this in donkeys.
Very intelligent with the ball Odegaard, he really is.
Ah stop could you just for a minute see him feeding Haaland up front 😎🙌
Yes I can.
Yes I fucking well can!!
If I was Arteta, I’d be on the blower to Uncle Josh giving them the hard sell.
If we got Haaland in the summer, then you’re talking a title tilt next season, simple as that.
It might be a highly improbable pipe dream at the moment, but so were Malcolm Macdonald, Charlie Nicholas, Dennis Bergkamp and Sol Campbell before they joined us. Stranger things have happened….
fantastic win. we were in control to kill the game off. around the 75th minute I started counting our passes wondering if we’d get to 300,000
I`ve been a Arsenal fan since 1971 and I like what I see on the pitch these days 🙂
If you – and any fellow ‘old-timers’ out there – haven’t checked them out already, ITV London are showing entire 70’s and early 80’s episodes of The Big Match. Brian Moore in his prime. The programme is called ‘The Big Match Revisited.’
Worth a nostalgic trip down memory lane mate.
No Sky, no idiotic presenters, no boring stats, no VAR. Just the beautiful game, loads of sideburns and some of the loudest suits and ties known to mankind.
I guarantee you will love it. 👍
Me too, and I absolutely love that Arteta seems to have combined the very best qualities of both the G.G and A.W. teams.
Nice performance. We controlled the game from start to finish and Leicester never really bothered us. Excellent defending, including the keeper.
My only complaint is that we still don’t make enough clear-cut scoring chances. We won today because Leicester were comically inept at a corner and then gifted us a penalty with a Xhakaesque handball. We never really opened them up despite dominating position.
But let’s not complain: it was a very solid performance.
Liverpool on Wednesday will be much tougher.
Since when has Xhaka given away a penalty by a hand ball. Why be so negative about him?
Mate, he’s made more than enough gaffs that have cost us in goals conceded and points.
Your constant attempts to reinvent him as some kind of veteran pillar of solidarity are wearing a bit thin now.
To be fair to you Xhaka has managed to avoid any serious gaffs recently; although today’s double-handed handball on the touch line was an inventive was to concede a free-kick. No damage done, so I can’t complain too much.
In many ways Xhaka is like Mustaffi was. Both really capable until they make a mistake that costs us points. It’s just people have different tolerance for one against the other. For Xhaka, some have already decided his good qualities out weigh the mistakes. For other fans it’s the reverse.
Awesome game of football by the Arsenal. COYG!👏👏👏👊
Wow!
what a performance
Partey Almost sustained a head inj from laca’s patting after his header.