A different slant on our match report this week as we encourage you to read the review of the game from the eyes of an Arsenal fan in our article ‘Confessions Of An Arsenal Fan’.
Ahead of the game there was much talk about who from our new signings might play or indeed was eligible. It turned out that only Hennessey was signed ahead of the deadline so it was as you were. Or at least we thought that was so.
It turned out that Pulis wanted to make changes following the narrow victory against Hull in mid-week. In came Dikgacoi alongside Jedinak which freed up Ward to return to his right back position. At left back Parr returned in place of Moxey.
Speroni, Ward, Gabbidon, Delaney, Parr, Puncheon, Dikgacoi, Jedinak, Bolasie, Chamakh (Gayle), Jerome (Bannan).
The game went as most expected, a valiant effort from Palace, stubborn even. Clear frustration from the home side and the fans but ultimately the class shone through. But they were far from convincing in this one and perhaps that is the way that Palace set themselves up and played.
The posession was lost which is not uncommon with games involving Palace right now. And we were under the cosh for large periods of the game. But similar to the Man City performance the defending was second to none even though both goals could perhaps have been prevented.
A lot of Palace fans would argue that this is a ‘free‘ game. One in which you would not expect anything out of but if Palace did then it would be quite a bonus. A lot is true of the fact that you could say the same for the top five or six teams in the Premier League. We have yet to take points off any of them but we have a better chance at home with several still to travel to Selhurst.
There were several good performances from Palace. Chamakh for one was all over the field in his return to Arsenal and received a warm round of applause when he left the field late in the second half. Jedinak as ever as well as Delaney stood out. But you have to say that Ward had one of his worst games in a Palace shirt and Puncheon showed nothing of his recent good form.
From a statistics point of view, Palace were far from outplayed in this game. The posession as you would expect was 73% in the favour of Arsenal but the rest made more interesting reading. Arsenal had 11 efforts on goal compared to 10 from Palace. Of those Arsenal had 6 on target and 2 from Palace. The corner count was 6-5 in favour of the home side as was the touches in the opposition area 19-10.
The top rated player for Arsenal was Oxlade-Chamberlain (8.6) and for Palace it was Delaney (7.2). Most shots was Oxlade-Chamberlain (4), most tackles was Arteta (6) and most dribbles was Bolasie (4).
Here are some views from fans on Twitter –
https://twitter.com/h_simmons/status/430289157911769088
https://twitter.com/MarcWilliams22/status/430289628072275969
https://twitter.com/chrisredditch/status/430289852798484480
https://twitter.com/titchcpfc/status/430297510276771840
https://twitter.com/paul72870582/status/430289691800502273
Statistics from Who Scored.
