Arsenal: Raya; White, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko, Partey, Odegaard, Rice, Saka, Havertz, Martinelli
Subs: Ramsdale, Calafiori, Timber, Jorginho, Nelson, Nwaneri, Trossard, Jesus, Nketiah
Arsenal kicked off their 2024/25 Premier League campaign with a 2-0 win against Wolves at Emirates Stadium, thanks to goals from Kai Havertz and Bukayo Saka.
Mikel Arteta named an unchanged side from the team that beat Lyon in the Emirates Cup last Sunday, with 17-year-old Ethan Nwaneri doing enough for a place on the substitutes’ bench while Jakub Kiwior was absent.
Arsenal, as expected, dominated possession early on but the first half chance fell to Wolves after Jorgen Strand Larsen rolled Gabriel and cutback for Jean-Ricner Bellegarde, although his shot was eventually blocked by the Brazilian.
That early chance seemed to kick the Gunners into action, and it wasn’t long before Havertz was running through on goal after a beautiful piece of skill from Martin Odegaard, although the German couldn’t get his shot off under pressure from Mario Lemina.
Ben White and Saka were quick to test Wolves goalkeeper Jose Sa shortly after, before Declan Rice fired over from 15 yards when he probably should have done better.
After a slow start, Arsenal were firmly in control after 20 minutes and the visitors were struggling to deal with their quick combinations around the box.
The pressure eventually told when Wolves struggled to clear their lines after a quick free kick, with the ball eventually finding its way to Saka who crossed beautifully for Havertz to run through and head home with Sa in no man’s land. 1-0.
As always in the Premier League, you can’t take anything for granted and Wolves were close to equalising when Strand Larsen powered a header towards goal after getting away from William Saliba, although David Raya stuck out a strong right hand to deny what would have been a certain goal.
Gabriel Martinelli almost doubled the Gunners’ lead before half time after some sharp combination play with Rice, although his goalbound effort was deflected over by Joao Gomes.
Arsenal were worth their half time lead and could have been further ahead with sharper finishing, although Wolves did threaten on occasion which Arteta will have been keen to shut down.
Just after the break, Havertz had a clear sight of goal after good wide play from Martinelli again but couldn’t quite wrap the ball into the far corner despite finding himself in space.
Wolves were also fortunate not to be reduced to ten men when Yerson Mosquera embodied the spirit of The Undertaker and choked Havertz on his way to ground after initially colliding with the German.
The defender somehow escaped any punishment despite VAR looking at the incident.
From that moment the game became more stretched and Arsenal were guilty of some sloppy giveaways in dangerous areas, Thomas Partey in particular was caught twice in possession and the away side were starting to grow in confidence.
Another sloppy giveaway – this time from the usually reliable Saliba – should have ended up with Wolves equalising but Matheus Cunha fired his effort straight into the midriff of Raya.
Arteta needed to make a change at that point and opted for Jurrien Timber to replace Oleksandr Zinchenko who was starting to find himself isolated down the left hand side.
But in typical Saka fashion, when Arsenal are struggling and the Emirates crowd are anxious, he step up with a goal to all but secure three points after a difficult second half.
It was the first time he was able to isolate Rayan Ait-Nouri in the game, before cutting inside and rifling an effort into the near post with goalkeeper Sa expecting a strike to the far post. 2-0.
The hosts saw the game out from that point forward, with Saka and Rice both brought off with time to spare after their shortened pre-seasons.
It wasn’t perfect, there will be some rust to shake off in these early weeks of the season and on another day – Arsenal may have been punished for those mistakes in possession.
But they weren’t and overall it was a good day for Arteta’s side who start the new campaign with three points and some familiar faces contributing again ahead of Aston Villa next week.
Marvellous
Raya is a massive upgrade on ramsdale. I like Ramsdale but jeez Raya is on different level.
I like Raya too…but I believe If Ramsdale made that pass to Saliba that led to the shot, you would have gone 🤯
At a certain point we just need to stop talking about Ramsdale. That point was a long time ago. He hasn’t been our keeper for a year.
He’s on the bench. He’s still our keeper and if Raya gets injured he starts.
Good number two though
Yes. But that doesn’t mean that every time Raya plays we have to compare him to Ramsdale. No other club does this. It’s getting weird.
Agreed, I think it’s simply enough to say we have an excellent starting keeper.
Jeez some are going all woke 😂
It’s not about going woke, what’s the point of comparing your 2 best keepers?
Great start! COYG
Wolves are a very grabby handsy sort of team- first move out of possession was always to grab ahold of our players, and because Gillett did nothing about it, we had an attempted strangulation. That wolves guy deserves a 3+1 red retrospectively
That was attempted murder or GBH at the least..
Commentator on my feed said it was a lean on the throat with no real force behind it. Proper bell**d.
You could see him look at havertz and then decide to act- insane thar var wouldn’t even look or act in lieu of the refs cowardice.
Terrible from the commentator. Mosquera looked down, saw Kai’s neck, and jabbed his hand into the choke. That is extremely dangerous and a clear yellow, can make a good argument for red.
Like that elbow from Bruno last season
It didn’t make sense at first, and then it hit me. Wolves are FC Jorge Mendes, basically a Portuguese team, so they’re going to do all the things Portuguese teams do against better opposition: the gamesmanship, trying to make it a stop start game, winding up, but with all that they have good players too and some top athletes. Uncomfortable opponent.
I disagree there- it was a moment of madness for the chokehold, but the grabbing of arms and shirts is a coached tactic. They were doing it the whole game across the pitch, regardless of the players nationality or representation
Portugal are the world #1 at that sort of thing, have been for a while
I thought we played wolverhampton today
The soul of the team is from Portuguese football. Their identity is still largely the one crafted by Nuno and represented on the pitch by guys like Moutinho and Ruben Neves. That’s still their identity.
Oh so now we can strangle people cool cool cool
Correction. You can only strangle an Arsenal player. If one of ours had done it he’d be red carded and they’d somehow find a way to tack on a few more games.
Granit xhaka would have gotten the firing squad
On the field.
Before the card was even out the ref’s pocket
Timber looked really good!! Can’t believe we went all of last season without him. He’s gonna be important.
Hopefully Martinelli can get on the scoresheet in the coming weeks, we’re gonna need him.
How was Mosquera not sent off? He literally threw Havertz to the ground by his throat and pinned him there. That’s assault and he should have seen a straight red.
He also did SA on Gabi Jesus in the dying minutes, and nothing.
Booked Jesus for his reaction but if ref won’t protect the players what ate they supposed to do?
He needs to be sent off for the first. But Gabi should know better. If the ref does not see the initial action you can be 100% sure that he sees the reaction. That can happen. But why VAR does not intervene in the first place when he chocked Kai is beyond me.
How fucking useless is VAR. If it can’t be used to deal with an incident like this efficiently then what’s the point. Blatant red card and proves the system broken and / or corrupt.
Great to start with a win, and god I love Saka so much. But some of the playing around at the back was pretty ordinary, we looked so much better after Raya started hoofing it — especially given how good Havertz is at winning those headers.
Wolves were good, and they attacked completely down our left side, which tells us everything we need to know.
The buildup wasn’t good. Even Saliba played some bad passes. Wolves had a lot of athletes and a good plan, but this needs to improve. Big Gabi and Zinny were both full of jitters and made errors. That mix especially with TP, I don’t trust them. Needed Jorginho.
I think the main issue was that we were doing it when our front players were too deep, which allowed Wolves to commit more players in the press. Some of the decision making was poor though, Partey and Gabriel especially.
Cunt ref
Yeah, Gillett is fucking useless. How he’s still employed is beyond me. The only ones worse are Coote and Attwell (which, to be fair, is a damned high bar in terms of badness).
Probably worse from the VAR, how they could overlook either of those incidents is beyond me, if it were an Arsenal player I would fully expect them to be sent off. The ass grab on Jesus would be sexually inappropriate touching at any workplace, shame on the PL if they let that go unpunished.
Well played. Martinelli and Rice need to sort out the left. Both spend too much time on the ball and Rice is almost always flat footed. Gabriel needs to be careful as he can no longer afford concentration lapses because the Handsome Italian will take his place. Thomas is extremely rusty, but nothing a few games can’t fix.
On to the next.
Gab and Saliba are the prem’s best rated defensive partnership. Imo they are the best central defensive pair in world football. Quite how you see him needing to be careful he’ll get replaced soon is beyond me. Geez. 🙄
The Italian should have started in place of Zinchenko. No doubt about that though. That’s why we bought him so we should be playing him.
Bright start, slightly ragged second half. But 3 points is 3 points.
Always like that playing against 12
Hi…..its me from earlier, I boldly claimed martinelli would be motm, he was……one of the top 7-9 players we had on the pitch so I come here to let you all know……this won’t even make the top 10 of worst predictions I make all season
To be fair to you though you also claimed “Martinelli mother”, which isn’t necessarily a bad prediction because I’m fairly sure he has one.
You make a solid point…..I’m infallible
Ok but not great.
CB’s far too slow releasing it, and Gabriel who I thought had a poor game , simply refused to pass it left, electing repeatedly to play it back into crowd.
And disagree completely about Martinelli, he continues not to deliver.
Timber a big plus, as we seemed to regain control after he came on.
Can see a big push now for mf signing.
Martinelli had a brilliant cut back to Partey who should have put the ball on frame but he whiffed his chance. Martinelli can’t simultaneously provide assists and finish them. He’s a confidence player, just needs a run of games.
So… really bold question… could be that that top centre forward we keep wanting the club to buy… could it be… we already have him?
He does 85% of what Osimhen would give us
No, we don’t.
Decent win but looked very shaky for a period there and Saka bailed us out.
Also MA logic is buying a left sided CB who can play LB and then playing Timber there instead
The game needed a calming presence. Richy is a lot of things but calm isn’t one of them.
That Saka goal was amazing.
It reminds me of my skills as a youth…
when I played goalkeeper
Good win, you saw in the first half what this team is still about. Odegaard, what an animal. MOTM for me. Lost our legs in the 2nd half. Lots of players still not up to full fitness. TP was dead on his feet after 60′. Needed to sub him off but MA didn’t trust Jorginho I guess. Merino to the rescue!! Disappointed in Zinchenko. Had a big chance to stamp himself on this game but his passing wasn’t good. Doubt we see him there next week. Him and big Gabi together feed anxiety, needed more calma, that’s why it was… Read more »
Mosqera or whatever his name is getting away with a choke hold and an ass grab….lucky his name isn’t Rubiales
Was luckily enough to watch this at The Emirates, was a great atmosphere and just glad we got it over the line. Saka MotM, almost won it on his own, but honourable shout out to Raya. Weird to think there’s still some questioning his quality, hard to shake off first impressions I guess, but those were some top quality saves.
Great (to have a) win, we’ll get in form in weeks ahead. Wolves are a dirty team and got away with a lot. On the other hand, I’m still not sure that Rice should be basically bombing forward all the time, he is still in top 2 DMs in the world and we are weakening ourselves by playing him out of position. This nonsense of making him contribute more to attack should stop, even uf his technique is not bad. But we should have more creative and skillful players in that left 8 position. Also, him being in the box… Read more »
It goes a bit against the grain, I know, but Rice is one of our best dead ball players on corners. This was likely a happy accidental discovery by Mikel, but Rice being on corners started after Dubai, and has yielded a fair few goals.
I think the advantage we have with his deliveries outweigh the loss of his height in the box.
Disagree with you about Rice on both points for today’s game, but I hope he’ll play as a 6 against Villa next week. Also think that if we get Merino, first sub in a game like this would include Partey going off, Rice taking his place, and Merino into left 8.
Totally agree. For me Rice is a #6 and should start there every game for us. We absolutely need a ball playing creative #8 if we are serious about making a step up this season.
Great to have the season started and to get an important 3 points and the shutout. Luckily we had an opponent that didn’t punish our sloppiness (thanks to Raya as well with some great saves), but facing Villa away, BHA at home and then Spurs and City on the road leaves no time left for getting our legs under us. Need to get any remaining signings over the line and clean up things when building out from the back. We have a score to settle with Villa for their taking two from us last year and costing us the title… Read more »
3 points, great.
Super frustrated at VAR for all reasons mentioned above, plus what i thought was a blatant penalty on Saka at the end of the 1st half. Surpirsed nobody raised it, was it only me?
Rays seemed to be wearing different kit than is being sold