It started drizzling with rain when I got to the station to catch my train to Stratford and pretty much didn’t stop until we got home after the game. It made conditions slippery and perfect for cup football.
Crystal Palace turned up full of confidence in the midst of a good run of form with a sizeable and very vocal crowd of support from South London. They filled the Clock End and made a lot of noise, particularly in the 1st half.
Arteta tried to balance his books by picking as strong a starting XI as possible whilst resting as many key players that he could and who needed a rest for the battles ahead over the congested festive period. In a way playing Palace twice in a few days is beneficial as we can’t have an Everton scenario this weekend vs an opponent who’s had a weeks rest.
Palace picked their strongest XI and went for it, an early long ball over the top caught Timber and Kiwior on their heels, Kiwior looked uncomfortable as his attempted clearance squirmed off of his head into the path of the imposing, immovable figure of Mateta who easily held off Jakub and slid the ball past a surprised Raya. Only 4 minutes on the clock and the Clock End was going bananas.
Arsenal did well to recover from that early blow and Palace maybe didn’t take advantage of the understandably disjointed Gunners, 8 changes from the previous weekend. The Arsenal defence, a back-four that had never played as a unit before was not as secure as we were used to and had its struggles but Kieran Tierney, who’d enjoyed the loudest cheer of the evening during the warm up, was rolling back the years as only he can. He gave it everything until subbed in the 2nd half when the tank was dry.
Arsenal applied some pressure in an effort to find an equaliser but it wasn’t clicking, Nwaneri was struggling to make an impact and wasn’t getting a lot of help from those in front or behind him, Partey wasn’t on his A game. Sterling went close from a free-kick and there were a few scrambles at the Palace end but Henderson looked fairly untroubled between the sticks.
Uncle Jorginho kept probing and looking for an opening but he wasn’t receiving much help from Merino and Ethan. The 1st half ended like a damp squib and Arteta reacted with two key substitutions. Off went Ethan,l – he’ll have much better days – and Partey; on came Big Bill and the Captain.
The impact of Martin and Bill was immediate, the defence reorganised with Timber going right-back and looking far happier and with Saliba cruising around the back four like the Bismark looking to pick off any Palace incursions, Kiwior looked more secure and McTesco just did his thing, it was great to see.
The midfield immediately began to move and generate danger and Palace began to drop deeper, Odegaard and Uncle J encouraged more movement from the forwards, Trossard woke up and was buzzing all over the place, Sterling looked threatening and Jesus was resurrected from his slumber. Sterling should have scored following great work from Tierney and then Jesus finally equalised, a surgical pass from Odegaard sliced open the Palace rearguard and Jesus showed great composure in lifting the ball over the onrushing Henderson, the roof flew off and Arsenal were back in business.
Smart work from Trossard, following another searching Odegaard long pass, saw Jesus swivel and almost score again, GJ was cooking!
Then Saka joined the party replacing Sterling and Lewis Skelly replaced the exhausted Tierney who gave everyone a wave as he left the field, was he saying goodbye? Great work from Odegaard and Timber put Bukayo away and he slid in Jesus who steadied himself before blasting past Henderson.I did hear some comments about it being off-side, but I couldn’t care less.
Palace pushed forward looking for an equaliser leaving Jesus lurking on the halfway line, Odegaard found him, of course he did, and our PL-misfiring Brazilian smashed another past Henderson after running half the length of the pitch – job done.
Eddie scored a consolation for Palace but it was a night for Jesus and we worshipped at his miraculous goalscoring return to form. Where it leads from here is really in the hands of the gods, but the return of our No.9 was like turning water into wine, a nice fruity red.
To be continued….
By Allezkev.