Leandro Trossard struck in the second half to seal a hard-fought 1-0 win for Arsenal against Everton that moves Mikel Arteta’s players up to fourth in the Premier League standings.
The Belgium international was a first half replacement for Gabriel Martinelli who picked up a muscular injury just as he thought he’d put the Gunners ahead. The Brazil international latched onto a through ball by Fabio Vieira and produced a tidy finish only for the strike to be ruled out by VAR for an offside on Eddie Nketiah in the build-up.
Sean Dyche’s side were typically dogged in their defending and it took a brilliantly worked corner routine for Arsenal to break the deadlock. Martin Odegaard, Oleksandr Zinchenko , Fabio Vieira and Bukayo Saka all had touches of the ball before Trossard produced a first time finish that found the net via Jordan Pickford’s far post.
After the game, Trossard was awarded the player of the match award and answered questions from Sky Sports.
Here’s what he had to say…
On being the match winner…
Of course [it feels good], it’s always nice to help your team and especially if you can score the winning goal.
On the way he finished for the goal…
I think it’s a great action. I called Bukayo and he saw me and it’s a perfect layoff and I knew I had to hit it straight with my left and, yeah, it goes in perfectly and I’m really happy with it.
On being strong with both feet…
I’ve been practicing all my life on both feet and you can see that it helps you in the game as an attacker. It’s so helpful if you’re good on both feet that you can go either way and obviously score goals with both feet, so it’s nice.
On whether he was aware of Arsenal’s bad record at Everton…
Yeah, of course we knew and we obviously wanted to win the game. It’s always a hard game, they give you a hard time but I think we defended the box well today and then [we created] a couple of chances and then taking those chances as well and luckily it was a 1-0 today and we go back to the three points.
On Arsenal taking a lot of short corners today…
Yeah, obviously they have a lot of tall guys and they’re good in the air. We know that they are good on [defending] set pieces, so that’s where we wanted to exploit them and I think it helped. And yeah, that was the idea behind it, I think.
On how hard the team works on short corners…
To be honest, we work hard on everything, technically. That’s the manager. Yeah, but he does so well with the team and the team picks it up so well and we’re really pleased with it.
On needing to be patient this year to get his chances…
Yeah, of course. You know the competition in the team. We have so many good players, but I’m happy at the moment and I’m happy that I could contribute today with the goal.
On a big week ahead…
Yeah, it’s true. The Champions League coming up. We’re really excited for that. Me as well, and looking forward to it. It’s a good week. But, yeah, first let us focus on the Champions League and then we will go ahead from there.
The difference maker
Somehow we have to fit Leo into the team more often ! He’s been such a good buy
I think he could play more yes,- but there are 3 more series to take part in.
Plus his added value in these cameos are so valuable that I would be suprised if he himself wouldn’t feel to be valued. Not only by the manager but also by the fans and his teammates.
0/10 – no binoculars celebration!! Lol
Top man! That goal was as smart as it was reflexive. Every other player in that frontline of ours would have taken a 2nd touch. Not Trossard. He’s an assassin. MOTM for me not on all round play but on the importance of those 3 points after Citeh and liverpool’s wins yesterday.
Trossard has always been the real deal.
This guy’s got that end-product that few others have in the team including our CFs.
IMO its him over Eddie in that false9 role all day.
Eddie is the weakest link. With him at 9, we become so predictable and opponents suffocate us easily. It was after the series of three winless games last season with eddie at the top which cost us the title. Everton away, brentford at home and west ham away. When eddie was dropped for Trossard, we started to swing again. No hate on Eddie but he is not good enough to be a second choice striker for the title challengers, especially when the second choices in other positions are as good as the first choice e.g. Ramsdale-Raya, White-Tomiyasu, Timber-Zinchencko, Gabriel-Kiwior, Rice-Partey-Jorginho… Read more »
technically above the rest of the league. massively underrated, even in his brighton days. heard people complaining about him at half time (people are somehow able to tell how good you are after 25 minutes). i thought his passing was very offensive and his movement off the ball created a lot of spaces for us. im very happy we got him.
He is a great buy and what a beautiful finish. He covers a multitude of positions and we need to give home more game time