No one could have complained had Palace edged us in penalties. We were very wasteful, and Palace worked hard. The Eagles have serious injury issues and they have top players at AFCON, so our heavily rotated squad should have been enough to win it in normal time. Instead, the Gunners tested the Palace GK several times but couldn't beat him. His own defender did put one past him, however. Then Palace produced a good free kick routine to draw level in the 95th minute. We'll have to play a lot better than this against Chelsea in the semis.
Jesus looked dangerous. Martinelli was most effective and could have had a couple of assists. Eze was not very effective. Madueke couldn't produce the finish when he had chances. The PKs were all top class from both sides until Kepa guessed right on a penalty by the defender who got the own goal. He won't be feeling good for a while. We scored zero non-penalty goals in our lest three, compiling an xG or over 6. We won all three games via three own goals and PKs. It's not sustainable.
And yes, we beat Everton 1-0 at their new place via a PK. Not a great performance, again, but much better than against Wolves.
We lost. But at least we showed up. Much better than the shameful loss at Leeds All the teams, both your and mine, are tired and hurting right now, what with their heavy schedule.
ReplyDeleteArsenal has the deepest squad I can remember. We have no excuses. Our midfielders are all healthy. Arteta started a lot of guys who haven't had many minutes, but they're all good players. We just couldn't finish our chances, whereas Palace scored with their only shot on goal. The rumor is that Glassner is going elsewhere next summer. That would be bad news for Palace.
ReplyDeleteIt would be very bad news for us if Glassner leaves, but it is good for the sport when performance gets rewarded
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