Arsenal 4-0 Wigan: First half flurry fires Gunners into 5th round

Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction – Video

A flurry of first half goals saw Arsenal go through the 5th round of the FA Cup after 4-0 win over Wigan yesterday.

The initial team line-up was interesting, as it looked as if Myles Lewis-Skelly was going to play in midfield, allowing Mikel Arteta to rest both Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi. However, an injury to Riccardo Calafiori in the warm-up put paid to that, meaning Bukayo Saka was called into the starting XI and Myles went to left-back instead.

“That was another learning moment and I always tell them, be ready because in the role that you have you can change any minute and Bukayo had to be ready and he was made aware of that very, very, very late,” said the manager.

I will say, if I had a choice of putting one of those players into midfield as a way of seeing what they might offer the team, I’d have gone for Saka. It’s something I’ve written about in the past, his quality and ability should allow him to do well in there, and I think – fitness aside – he was interesting in that role. With the injuries we currently have, it might be something we have to revisit, and I thought he slotted in very nicely.

Obviously, everything comes with the caveat of the opposition, a team languishing near the bottom of League One, but as well as Saka did, he was outdone by Eberechi Eze. He’s been under the spotlight of late, he hasn’t hit the heights people expected, but his performance yesterday was just what he needed. His pass for Noni Madueke’s opener was excellent, spotting the smart run and threading it perfectly into the path of the winger whose first time finish was very good.

Eze then turned provider for Gabriel Martinelli, this time playing a pass with his left foot for the Brazilian, who ran beyond the defender and finished with his left foot. Saka and Madueke combined for the third goal, the cross from the captain deflecting off the underside of Gabriel Jesus’ foot, before hitting a defender and going in. The fourth came from an excellent Christian Norgaard pass, finding Jesus over the top and his dinked finish made it 4-0 and we hadn’t even played half an hour.

Wigan then had to make an injury enforced change, bringing on FA Cup winner Matt Smith (formerly of this parish), and shifting to a back four. They also stopped playing with the high line that we had exposed so well in that opening period of the game, and after that everything just settled down. Wigan had a chance which Kepa saved, and at half-time Viktor Gyokeres replaced Saka in what I assume was a common sense substitution.

Ben White did his best to help us add to the scoreline, with excellent passes for Gyokeres and Jesus. The former hit the post with his first time shot, the latter forced the keeper into a decent save. William Saliba came off for 16 year old Marli Salmon to get a run out at centre-half, before White went off after going down late in the game. His Instagram seemed to suggest there’s no injury to worry about, so fingers crossed there.

There was also the unusual sight of a goalkeeping change, with Tommy Setford coming on for Kepa with just a few minutes to go. The 19 year old made his second appearance for the club, having played in a 4th round EFL Cup win over Preston last season. His first involvement was to claim a high free kick pumped into the box, and he clearly enjoyed it too.

Eze had a couple of late shots (he had 6 in total yesterday as well as the two assists), but this was a game we had won before the half hour mark, and while it might be very slightly disappointing not to have scored more, it really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. We have a very busy schedule with two away games this week, and there was just no need to do anything other than play this one out. Be sensible, take no risks, we need all hands on deck for Wolves away then the North London derby.

Afterwards, Mikel Arteta said:

Very happy with the results and especially the performance, the way we started the game. You really want to show how much you want it when you play against this kind of opposition in the cup, and we certainly had that attitude, and then I was a bit surprised with the level of cohesion and connections very early in the match, because when you make that many changes, that can be a part of the game – that can be lacking. But it certainly wasn’t, and we scored some very, very good goals. I’m very pleased with that.

And on Eze’s contribution:

Yes, some superb balls and his intentions, I think the risk that he took in the final third, the amount of shots that he tried to take as well, I think that’s really positive. That’s what we want from him.

Again, you have to take the opposition into account, but if we’re looking for him to build some confidence and rhythm, then this can’t be anything other than helpful in that sense. He’s got to do it against more challenging opposition, but he made his mark on the game, the three starting forwards all got on the scoresheet, we kept a clean sheet, players like Norgaard and Mosquera slotted in perfectly and played very well, and now we just await the draw which takes place later this evening.

Ok, I’ll leave it there this morning. Stand by for an Arsecast Extra, as always. We’ve already put out the call for questions on BlueSky @gunnerblog.bsky.social and @arseblog.com. So fire away using the hashtag #arsecastextra – or if you’re an Arseblog Member on Patreon, leave your question in the #arsecast-extra-questions channel on our Discord server. The pod should be out mid-morning.

For now, have a good one.