Arsenal 3-0 Sunderland: Gyokeres makes a big impact off the bench

Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction – Video

Arsenal moved 9 points ahead of Man City, perhaps just temporarily, after a 3-0 win over Sunderland yesterday.

Mikel Arteta brought Riccardo Calafiori back into the team at left-back, Kai Havertz started in midfield, and Gabriel Jesus got the nod up front. There was good early chance when Havertz headed a Leandro Trossard cross wide, and a bit of a scare in our box when David Raya came to claim, fumbled it, and Brian Brobbey’s effort was cleared away by the German.

Sunderland got men behind the ball when out of possession, but they didn’t come to park the bus. They came to play a bit too, and they made it really tough for us. Declan Rice curled an effort just wide around the half hour mark with the keeper beaten all ends up, and Brobbey went into the book for a foul on Martin Zubimendi which looked like it might have had the potential to be worse. Both players went for the ball, Zubi got there first and the Sunderland man’s studs made contact with the shin, but I think what saved him (and Zubimendi) was that it was just a ‘glancing’ blow. It certainly was nothing like the red card Christian Romero got earlier in the day.

Just two minutes later though, the Spanish international fired us ahead. Trossard drew the attention of two defenders, laid it back to Zubimendi outside the box, and his low, sliced effort hit the bottom of one post before ricocheting into the side netting on the far side. It’s another excellent finish from the summer signing, who now has 6 goals in all competitions, and has brought important added threat from a position last season that offered very little of that. His rendition of the Mikel Merino corner flag celebration was a nice moment too, a nod to his teammate who looks set to miss the rest of the season through injury.

It might have been more at the break if Havertz’s run and shot had curled in rather than just wide, and it looked as if Jesus might add to the lead too, but he was called offside when he ran through on goal. A bit of a lucky escape for Sunderland there, as there was a fairly obvious foul which would have resulted in a penalty and a red card.

The visitors weren’t content to just sit back and offer nothing, like some teams who have come to our place of late. Early in the second half Raya had to make a good save and there was some hesitation before Gabriel cleared; we needed Gabriel again to make a good tackle in the box; Zubimendi read danger in our area again and got across to clear; and it was clear they weren’t going to just lie down.

We needed to change something, so Arteta brought on Gabriel Martinelli and Viktor Gyokeres for Noni Madueke and Jesus who had struggled to make any real impact, and within a few minutes that had paid dividends. Trossard, who I thought was excellent in both halves yesterday, kept tormenting them on the left, eventually finding a good pass to Havertz who laid it back to Gyokeres. The Swede took a touch, seemed to slip a bit, but still found a way to crack a powerful shot beyond the keeper despite him getting a touch on it.

That settled us a bit as well, the one goal lead is always a bit precarious. Eberechi Eze came on for a positive cameo and almost scored with his left foot after Rice found him just inside the box. Mostly though, we just controlled the last 10-15 minutes with periods of possession, reminding me of when Arteta spoke about wanting his team to manage positive scorelines with ‘300,000’ passes.

The third goal came when substitute Christian Norgaard cleared a hopeful Sunderland punt towards our penalty area, Martinelli raced on it, and beyond the defender, drove into the box and squared for Gyokeres to tap home his second to make it 3-0. He did his trademark celebration while lying on the ground, while Martinelli stood above him doing his weirdly endearing Pan’s Labyrinth version.

Can we also just mention the shocking challenge on Gyokeres as he was about to score? For me it’s far, far worse than Brobbey’s in the first half. That was, at least, an attempt to go for the ball and he was just a fraction slow in comparison with Zubimendi. This was a guy leaping through the air with no intent of playing the ball, and the Arsenal striker is lucky he appears to be made of robust stuff because that could have ended badly. I know he scored, but that doesn’t mitigate how bad that challenge was and that defender is lucky not to have been sent off, in my opinion.

So, much like the Havertz goal in midweek, this added a nice cherry on top of what was a really professional display from the Gunners. Sunderland made it tough, we coped with that, scored three goals, kept another clean sheet, and put the pressure on City ahead of their game against the Mugsmashers today. Afterwards, Mikel Arteta said:

Very happy obviously with the win, with big parts of the performance, with the clean sheet as well, because it’s a really tough opponent. They’re really good at what they do, really good at breaking play, playing to the last line, breaking your press, holding the ball, and it’s very difficult to get sequences with threat and momentum consecutively.

And I liked his answer when asked what the 9 point gap means:

Nothing, we still have to win so many games to achieve what we want. So, there’s no focus on that, that’s something else. We’ve done our job now, we’ve had what we have to do, so I assess that, try to improve it and get ready for Brentford.

I really think that’s the only way to look at it from the perspective of manager and players. Obviously it’s a nice position to be in, but if you start thinking about anything other than winning the next game, there’s a chance you lose focus. If we know anything about this manager, it’s that he will not allow anything like that until, fingers crossed, we get over the line.

I also thought he was quite interesting on Gyokeres, when asked about how he’s coped with the highs and lows of his debut season in red and white:

Yeah, with Viktor, when you look at him, it’s very difficult to understand his emotion because he looks straight at you and you don’t really know! But he doesn’t seem too affected by whether there are really highs or lows and that’s what we need, the stability. He’s very demanding of himself, he’s constantly trying to improve and that’s really, really good.

He now has 6 goals and 2 assists in his last 8 games, by some distance the best run of form he’s enjoyed since he joined. Maybe it’s a nice purple patch that you could say was overdue; maybe he’s developing better understandings of his teammates and vice-versa; maybe it’s responding to the competition that Jesus and Havertz have brought in recent weeks; but whatever it is, I hope he continues in this vein, because he had a big impact off the bench yesterday, and if that continues to build his confidence, then ultimately the team benefits.

All in all, a solid day’s work, and we can look to Anfield this afternoon and hope Liverpool can do us a favour. After that, there’s a midweek schedule which sees us play last, so we have time to prepare but also, perhaps, contend with that gap being closer than it is now. So it goes in a Premier League title race.

Right, that’s it for this morning. Have a great Sunday folks, back here tomorrow with more and an Arsecast Extra. Until then.