Soccer

Arsenal back in top four after impressive win over Leicester

Mikel Arteta’s team move into fourth with three games advantage over Man United

Arsenal’s Alexandre Lacazette celebrates scoring his team’s second goal against Leicester City at the Emirates Stadium. Photograph: Nick Potts/PA

Barney Ronay at the Emirates Stadium
Sun Mar 13 2022 - 18:51

Arsenal 2 Leicester City 0

On a mild, peppy, boisterous afternoon at the Emirates Stadium Arsenal made it five Premier League wins in a row to reclaim fourth spot ahead of Manchester United.

Thomas Partey was assertive in central midfield, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli hugely impressive as the wide players in that voraciously hungry press-and-move attack.

It is a mark of Arsenal’s progress since the turn of the year that there were times during this 2-0 defeat of an under-strength Leicester where they almost seemed to be having too much fun with those attacking combinations, trying to dance the ball into the net in the grand modern-day Arsenal tradition.

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This is, after all, the youngest squad in the Premier League. They probably deserve to have a little fun, and that quality that has been key to Arsenal’s surge of form, the sense that Mikel Arteta has created both a clear tactical system, and more importantly, a vibe, a feeling of something juiced with its own youthful energy. The past no longer lingers around this place. Or at least, not while they continue to win. And this was the start of a key period in the slog towards the season’s end game.

Arsenal have benefited from the combined effects of a pared-back schedule and a young, biddable squad. One game a week. Time to groove and drill. People under the age of 25 who actually listen to you. What more could a furiously meticulous details-manager want? That favourable terrain has now ramped up into an intense triple-header: this game, Wednesday and Saturday, with Liverpool and Aston Villa respectively a genuine test for what is still a sparse-looking squad.

Fab four

Leicester may have had their thoughts elsewhere, resting Youri Tielemans and Wilfred Ndidi from the start for Rennes on Thursday. Arteta went with three of his fabulous four, an Odegaard-Martinelli-Saka attacking tripod revolving fluently behind Alexandre Lacazette. And steadily those patterns began to assert themselves against a Leicester team that sat deep.

With nine minutes gone Saka produced a stunning piece of skill, pulling a long diagonal pass out of the sky on the run with the tip of his toe, then sniping back inside, and forcing a corner. Martinelli’s kick was hard and flat – and headed straight in at the near post by Partey. It looked a little too easy. Partey took the space and refused to be shifted.

His influence has been profound in the current run. Here he started in a deep midfield double-bolt with Granit Xhaka, who has been marauding a little further forward in a kind of Kanté-lite king-of-the-turnover role. And for a while Arsenal swamped Leicester and pinged neat, zingy triangles just in front of the back four.

With 17 minutes gone Partey hit the post with a high-craft curling shot dug out of a tight spot. Moments later Saka slalomed through the left-hand side of the Leicester defence and put Martinelli in for a shot at goal. This Arsenal attack has been so aggressively drilled in winning the ball back in that band of grass 40 yards or so from goal, and they did it repeatedly here, hunting in carefully tessellated packs.

It took 23 minutes for Leicester to construct anything resembling an attack, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall measuring a lovely pass over the top for Harvey Barnes, whose stab at goal was smothered by Aaron Ramsdale.

And six minutes later Ramsdale produced something spectacular, leaping to claw away with his left hand a close-range header from Barnes. It was a wonderful, cinematic save. He probably shouldn’t have had a chance to make it.

Overblown drama

With 29 minutes gone there was a moment of slightly overblown drama as Gabriel collapsed in a writhing heap after some minor contact from Kelechi Iheanacho’s gloved finger. And by now James Maddison was starting to bring his influence to bear, working cleverly with Nampalys Mendy to wrestle some control in those central areas.

But Arsenal emerged re-energised after the break and asserted that early pressure once again, with both wide attackers cutting inside to make a tight five in the centre. Martinelli jinked and feinted almost to the goalline and forced a desperate block. And just before the hour mark there was an extended VAR drama as Kasper Schmeichel saved well from Ben White as the red shirts swarmed in on goal.

The ball bounced out to Partey and his header was blocked on the line. After much zooming and rewinding the cameras detected a fine deflection off the fingertips of Caglar Soyuncu. It was a clear penalty, brilliantly detected by the technology.

Lacazette slowed in his run-up, then smashed the kick into Schmeichel’s top right-hand corner to make it 2-0. At that point Arsenal had taken 15 shots at goal to Leicester’s three, and had begun to thrum up through the gears. Emile Smith-Rose came on for the final 10 minutes and immediately offered his own kind of scurrying creativity.

For Leicester defeat here interrupted a promising run of four straight wins, although the season seems to be focused for now on the glories of the Europa Conference. Arsenal spent the whole second half looking like a team playing with something in reserve. The next week could tell us exactly how much. - Guardian

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