Arsenal’s Centre-Backs Do the Clearing Up

The first goal arrived early, which mattered for a side Arseblog noted has sometimes started games slowly. Martin Odegaard’s corner caused the problem, Gabriel flicked it on, Jordan Pickford got a hand to it, and the ball dropped dangerously at the near post. Before an Everton defender could clear, Konsa was there to poke home from close range for his first Arsenal goal.

That sequence said plenty about the afternoon. Arsenal had control and territory, but not quite the cutting edge that would have turned the match into a rout by half-time. They created enough to feel comfortable and enough to think the score should already have been wider. Eberechi Eze picked out dangerous areas, Noni Madueke had a couple of decent sights of goal, Mikel Merino was involved repeatedly, and Odegaard kept finding room to prod and probe.

Everton, by contrast, had a stretch of possession without much menace behind it. Their clearest opening in the first half came less from their own invention than from Arsenal nearly creating trouble for themselves, when Ben White was unaware of Thierno Barry while heading back toward goal and David Raya had to step in with the save. At 1-0, that is the sort of lapse that can alter the tone of a game even when one side has been comfortably better.

Instead Arsenal restored the right hierarchy after the break. There was a brief scare when Gabriel landed awkwardly on his knee making a clearance and needed treatment, with a substitution seemingly being readied. He stayed on, and soon after he scored. White overlapped, delivered a cross to the back post, and Gabriel headed in for 2-0. There was a VAR check, but Arseblog’s account is clear that White had timed the run properly.

That left Everton with little to argue about beyond a late Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall header that went wide. Arsenal had managed the game without much drama, even if the forwards never supplied the emphatic finishing that would have made the result feel extravagant rather than merely solid.

Arteta, quoted by Arseblog, framed it through the schedule as much as the performance, saying he was “very happy with the victory, the performance and the week” after what he called a “terrible schedule.” He also made a point of praising Konsa’s start at the club, calling him “unbelievable” and highlighting how difficult it is to arrive without a pre-season and settle quickly in a defence that already has established names.

That praise made sense in a match where Arsenal’s centre-backs did the scoring and most of the cleaning up. The game was not a showcase of relentless attacking fluency. It was something a little plainer and, over a long season, probably just as useful: an early breakthrough, territorial control, one anxious moment contained, and a second goal that shut the afternoon down.