Crystal Palace (1) 1 v Arsenal (3) 5
By Kaz Mochlinski at Selhurst Park
Arsenal could have some significant momentum beginning to build at a crucial time in the calendar, after coming away from Crystal Palace with their biggest league victory of the season.
It was a performance which was sufficient to impress even Mikel Arteta, who was in an exceptionally buoyant mood afterwards, declaring about the title race: “For us, it’s on.”
The Gunners’ head coach acknowledged that Liverpool still have a clear advantage in the Premier League, but he has been unequivocally encouraged by his team’s recent resilience.
“At the moment, we are not there yet, and they have a few games in hand. It’s so difficult for any team to win it. In any competition, anything can happen.
“We want to put ourselves right in there, and, if we compete in the way we are competing every single game, let’s see what happens.”
Arsenal were helped by the home side not paying attention to the pre-match warning from the Crystal Palace manager, Oliver Glasner, that “Most of the chances are coming from their right side.”
Within less than six minutes, Bukayo Saka had conjured a typically threatening right-wing run and cross for Gabriel Jesus to finish at the far post. It was the Brazilian’s first goal in the Premier League since January.
Inside a quarter of an hour of the game, Gabriel Jesus added a second, once more sweetly-struck first-time and perfectly-placed, giving Palace’s in-form goalkeeper Dean Henderson no real chance of stopping it.
Only hitting the crossbar and post, plus a superb second half save by Henderson, denied the resurgent forward a repeat hat-trick against Palace in the space of four days, following the 3-2 home win in the League Cup quarter-finals.
And the last two of those Gabriel Jesus efforts on goal still led directly to Arsenal scoring, through Kai Havertz and Gabriel Martinelli. Havertz’s contribution made him the Gunners’ top scorer in the league this season with six.
Perhaps the most intriguing statistic from the Saturday evening encounter is that Gabriel Jesus has never lost any of the 61 Premier League matches in which he has scored, extending his sequence now to 56 wins and five draws.
His second goal at Selhurst Park was Arsenal’s 50th in the Premier League from a corner since Nicolas Jover joined the Gunners as set-piece coach in 2021 - the most of any club in the competition during this time.
In all, Arsenal have scored 88 Premier League goals in 2024, creating a new club record by surpassing the 86 that they managed in both 2004 and 2009. Much of it is down to their captain, Martin Ødegaard.
Since his return to the starting XI six weeks ago following a troublesome ankle injury, Arsenal are unbeaten in 10 games, winning seven. And it has come at a challenging time of the year, mostly playing twice a week.
Ødegaard enables Arteta to smoothly switch between a 4-2-3-1 formation and 4–1-4-1, which the Arsenal boss has been increasingly employing this season. At Palace, the Norwegian started further back in the double-pivot, before being pushed up to inside-right.
It worked even better when Declan Rice came on from the subs’ bench for the final half an hour, as, on this occasion Arsenal did not sit back and conserve their advantage but looked to seize an opportunity to improve their goal difference.
They were able to add two goals in this time, including notably Rice’s first in the league this season, setting another record by scoring five goals for the sixth time in away matches in all competitions this year, becoming the first top-flight side to achieve that in English football history.
With Ødegaard back in the side, they have faced four London derbies in consecutive Premier League away games, drawing 1-1 twice in SW6, at Chelsea and Fulham, plus putting five past both West Ham United and Crystal Palace.
Usually local derby matches can be especially testing, but Arsenal have now not lost any of their past 10 against London rivals in the league, which should give them additional encouragement with their next trip being to Brentford on New Year’s Day.
In a quirk of the fixture lists, Arsenal have had their travelling cut down currently, in December only playing in the capital city, in the midst of almost six weeks without any game out of town - and none in the Premier League for nine weeks.