Gunners Dominate Injury-Hit Leeds: Leeds 1 - 4 Arsenal

 Thrashed 7-0 by City last time out, no one was expecting much from the Whites today, and "not much" was what they could muster.  A rash challenge by Ben White (a former Leeds player, appropriately enough) in the second half gifted Leeds a PK which Raphinha buried in style.  But that made it 3-1 Arsenal, the visitors having scored thrice in the first half from two delightful goals from Martinelli and a deflected shot from Saka.  Emile Smith Rowe was put on late and finished the scoring beautifully.  Our offense is finally clicking now that Aubameyang has been exiled from the match day squad for his indiscretions.  

The commentators kept harping on Arsenal's fourth place position, but there are two teams with enough games in hand to pass us in the table.  Nevertheless, this is about where we'd want to be now, approaching the halfway mark of the season.  I'd be happy with 6th place and a Europa League berth, but let's dream big and hope we manage to pip Man U and the Spuds to 4th.

I wonder why Lokonga can't get a look in.  It's not as though either Partey or Xhaka is all that strong a presence in midfield.  Cedric got 30 minutes when Tomiyasu went off with a calf problem.  ESR came on for Saka (who did not have a great game).  Martinelli yielded to Tavares, who played left wing; I thought it made more tactical sense to replace Xhaka with Lokonga, or if Martinelli had to come off, simply add Lokonga to the midfield and push Odegaard further up.  Well, whatever Arteta had in mind, it worked.

Next game, if it's played, will be and EFL Cup quarterfinal against Sunderland Tuesday.  Arteta will be desperate to win silverware and provide his fringe players with more minutes, so you know he will want to win that and go to a two-legged semifinal.  I don't remember Arsenal winning a League Cup. (I looked it up, and we won it in '87 and '93--it's only been done since 1961.  We lost five finals.)