Gabriel, Trossard and Saka.
Courtesy of Arsenal Media.
Yesterday, we faced off against Leicester City at The King Power Stadium. Our gaffer, Mikel Arteta, made just one change from our winning team against Aston Villa, starting Leandro Trossard in the place of Eddie Nketiah, whose form has honestly dropped these last couple of gameweeks.
Therefore, our front three attack consisted of Gabriel Martinelli in the left flank, Leandro Trossard at the centre and Bukayo Saka at the right.
It was a heavily fought contest, with Leicester counting on the counter attack but thankfully, our defence was up to the task, with Gabriel Magaelhaes being the outstanding player in the back, blocking off key passes and keeping the Leicester strikers at bay.
Leandro Trossard managed to find the back of the net from a corner kick. However, this was ruled out due to a foul in the build-up play as Ben White was found to have caught Danny Ward's left hand.
In the second half, the boys quickly took control of the game as Trossard once again became pivotal for us as he assisted Martinelli for his second goal in two matches. This was crucial as it was to be the only goal of the match with Saka's goal being ruled out due to offside play later on in the match.
This temporarily built us a gap of 5 points between us and Manchester City but The Cityzens were able to cut that to a mere 2 points after smashing The Cherries by 4 goals to 1 with Haaland getting on the scoresheet. This made the total of his Premier Goals 27, the most by a single player in Manchester City's history.
We have been talking about our game in hand, well...we're to play it this coming Wednesday as The Toffees pay a visit to The Emirates Stadium. This might be the most crucial game in our season as if we beat them, the gap between us and City builds to 5 and this is very important as we are yet to meet City for our second leg in the Premier League, with us heading to The Etihad.
Back to Europe, the draw to The Europa League Round of 16 were done the day before and we were drawn against Bellerin's current employers, Sporting C.P. Last time we played against them at their homeground, way back in 2018, Danny Welbeck scored the only goal in the 2-leg Europa League group stage tie.
The first leg will be played at Estadio Jose Alvalade on Thusday, March 9 2023 with the reverse fixture being played at The Emirates Stadium a week later.
With the Premier League Title at the top of our minds, we shouldn't let it deter us from this trophy. The return of Europa League competition might also help our Team B players like Tomiyasu, Turner, Tierney and Vieira gain some much needed game time while our main team are tasked with keeping our hopes for the Prem. title intact.
Europa League R.O.16 Ties.
Courtesy of The Europa League.
Comments