Following on from a week where Arsenal lost two away games, Mikel Arteta would have been hoping back-to-back home games in the following week would provide a good opportunity to bounce back. And that’s exactly what happened as Arsenal built on their midweek Champions League win with a 3-1 win over Vincent Kompany’s Burnley.
Illness for Ben White saw Takehiro Tomiyasu come across to right-back, and Oleksandr Zinchenko came back in at left-back. The rest of the team for Arsenal remained unchanged from the win over Sevilla with Leandro Trossard leading the line upfront again.
The Gunners started well, with Bukayo Saka forcing James Trafford into a fine stop with a powerful right footed effort, although there was action at the other end of the pitch as well as David Raya made a strong stop to deny Gudmunsson from opening the scoring. Despite dominating the match, Arsenal had remained fairly frustrated by the clarets until the final moments of the half when a Zinchenko cross was headed on by Saka, and Trossard was there at the back post to bravely throw himself at the ball and nod Arsenal into the lead. The Belgian took a nasty hit to the arm by the post but thankfully was ok to continue.
However, Arsenal failed to come out of the blocks quickly at the start of the second half and conceded an equaliser when a strike from just inside the box from Josh Brownhill deflected off Gabriel and past David Raya to equalise for Vincent Kompany’s men. But there was relief for Arsenal and Mikel Arteta just three minutes later as a Trossard corner was headed in confidently and commandingly by William Saliba to restore Arsenal’s lead.
And that lead was soon added too as Oleksandr Zinchenko reacted to a loose ball in the Burnley penalty area and acrobatically found the far top corner with a superb strike to all but seal the win at 3-1. Although, there was one last action of the game as in the 83rd minute, substitute Fabio Vieira caught a Burnley player late with his studs up. It was a poorly mistimed challenge by the young Portuguese and he was rightly shown a straight red card by referee Michael Oliver.
Despite going down to ten men, Arsenal comfortably saw out the remainder of the contest to claim a big three points and capitalising on Tottenham’s defeat against Wolves earlier on in the day. The final international break of 2023 now begins but after that Arsenal return to action with a trip West to face Brentford at the Gtech Community Stadium.
Player ratings:
David Raya: 7 – Made two strong saves in the first half
Takehiro Tomiyasu: 7 – Had a strong defensive performance at right-back
William Saliba: 9 – The usual Saliba masterclass with a goal chucked in for good measure
Gabriel: 7 – Decent but somewhat sloppy at times in possession
Oleksandr Zinchenko: Scored a great goal and looked back to his best
Jorginho: 7 – Classic Jorginho performance. Kept Arsenal ticking in midfield
Kai Havertz: 6 – Didn’t really get too involved
Declan Rice: 7 – Solid as usual
Bukayo Saka: 7 – Got an assist for Trossard’s opener and always looked dangerous
Leandro Trossard: 8 – Goal and an assist, proved his worth again
Gabriel Martinelli: 7 – Like Saka, was always a threa