Arsenal grinds out another result at The King Power Stadium after defeating Leicester City 2 nil to qualify for the next stage of the Carabao Cup. Christian Fuchs(57') deflected the ball into his own net and Eddie Nketiah(90') prodded home from close range in the dying minutes of regulation time to secure Arsenal win. A trip to face Liverpool at the Anfield awaits barring an upset for The Reds against Lincoln City.
It was a much-changed Arsenal side to the one that defeated West Ham 2-1 in the league at the weekend. Mikel Arteta gave a start to 5 of Arsenal's young Academy product, as Bukayo Saka, Reiss Nelson, Joe Willock, Edward Nketiah and Ainsley Maitland-Niles all gave a good account of themselves, especially 19-year-old Saka, whose performance on the night earned him Man Of The Match award.
Having started the new league season on a high with 2 wins out of 2 like their visitor Arsenal and boosted by the fact that Arsenal's last 2 visits to the King Power Stadium had both ended in a 2 nil, 3 nil consecutive defeats, Leicester City was on a high spirit. However, with fixtures coming in thick and fast, managers need to rotate their squad players and Brendan Rogers did make quite a number of changes(11 in total), 1-2 many changes that would eventually prove costly on the night.
A much-changed Leicester team to the one that won 4-2 over Burnley at the weekend, it was an opportunity for the fringe players to stake a claim into regular starters and most of them did give a good account of themselves judging by player ratings. However, a couple of them might now find first-team action hard to come by after the night poor showing.
If you are still having any doubt about Arsenal's progress under Mikel Arteta, this is the time to start taking the Spaniard serious and cut him some due reverence. He(Arteta) has sure transformed Arsenal's mentality into a winning one, something that has been missing for a very long time. Admittedly, they are not where they want to be yet The Gunners.
Sky Sport Screenshot
Plenty of work still to be done especially in the creativity department. With Mesut Ozil still frozen out of the team and no current Arsenal players yet to match his(Ozil) ability to create scoring chances, Arsenal yet again could merely manage 2 big chances against Leicester, just like they struggled to create goal-scoring opportunities in their win over West Ham at the weekend. With chances far and in between, shots on target are also hard to come by.
Arsenal must address this area if they are to be a genuine title contender alongside the likes of Liverpool and Manchester City. Manchester United, Chelsea and Spurs have all brought in Bruno Fernandez, Kai Havertz and Gareth Bale respectively to bring more goals, Arsenal must respond if they don't want to be left behind.
[cross-posted.]