Arsenal vs Crystal Palace: 4 Things We Learned From Stalemate

Arsenal drew 0-0 with Crystal Palace in the Premier League on Thursday.

With an apparent corner turned, Crystal Palace heading to the Emirates Stadium presented the perfect opportunity for Arsenal to confirm that notion: a side who’ve become something of a bogey side.

Starting with the bit between their teeth and fronted by a fired up Dani Ceballos, Arsenal kicked off proceedings well without being overly dangerous. Regardless of whether the side start well or finish well, the common denominator is that these spells of pressure can’t be sustained.

Arsenal tailed off just as the Eagles’ tails perked up with the first half ending goalless, although it could easily have been far worse for the hosts as Bernd Leno produced a superb flying save and James Tomkins saw his header rattle the bar.

Mikel Arteta clearly got stuck into his players during the break as they came flying out of the traps once more, only this time with greater purpose. Playing with a pace that is impossible to match for an entire half – at least with this crop of players – no goals came after a positive restart and the same story followed.

Plenty of probing without much in the way of penetration, the mantra of making sure you don’t lose if you can’t win slowly crept into the fans’ and players’ minds, with 0-0 the end result. Here’s what we learned from Thursday night.

Dani Ceballos’ Fire

When your side is stacked full of quality from top to bottom and still your club goes out and buys a another midfielder *cough Liverpool cough* for example, the reasons for that are clear: raise the competition.

It doesn’t matter what walk of life you’re in, whether you’re angling for the last pack of toilet roll in the supermarket shelf or if your girlfriend’s younger brother is embarrassing you on FIFA, you’ve got to try harder to up the ante in the face of competition.

For about 55 minutes of Thursday night, Ceballos was a man who knew full well that Thomas Partey was sat on the bench primed and ready. The Spaniard isn’t the quickest, yet sheer desire saw him move about with more purpose, get his head up quicker and add bite to his passing.

In the first half he produced the two of the best passes he’s made during his time at the club. He knows that the Ghanaian is his competition. Now he’s back fully fit, it’ll be Partey and Xhaka. Ceballos is not blind to that eventuality, but he’s doing his best to convince Arteta that a Ceballos/Partey combination is feasible.

His display fizzled out as the match wore on and Partey’s entrance in his stead gave a clear indication of the manager’s intentions for Monday, but Ceballos did offer food for thought, particularly in that first half. Whether it gets him a spot or not, it’s evident how vital Partey is to Arsenal, in more than just his own ability.

Low Block Struggles

How bad were West Brom? They were dire, even worse than perhaps initially thought. Their low block was a stick of butter left out to melt in comparison to Thursday night.

In a game that was calling out for ‘a break’, one either coming through an opposition error, kind bounce of the ball or someone to beat their man one-on-one, Arsenal had no such luck.

Arsenal are utterly reliant on playing with pace in order to win these fixtures. Individually across the team, there is only a small handful of players who have the technical competence to breeze past one or two players and open doors via that route.

Less touches and proactive movement at the beginning of the second half looked like producing a goal, more so than any other stage of the match. It’s hard to see Arsenal scoring unless they play this way. Not strong enough at set-pieces or able to rely on Bukayo Saka producing a Southampton-esque moment each game, there has to be zip in the passing to break teams down in a low block.

Since this side do not have the capability to play at that speed all through matches, they have to score in the spells where they do. Against Palace that was at the beginning of either half, periods of play that petered out pretty drastically after ten or so minutes.

Mikel Arteta’s Gameplan

Including centre-backs, three of the four left-sided players against Palace were right footed. David Luiz joined Maitland-Niles and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang on that flank and the lack of balance was stark.

Needing to reset the usual left-sided attacking bias for Thursday, it became evident early on that the plan was to play diagonal switches as quickly as possible from right to left. Eberechi Eze and Wilfried Zaha were always going to try and isolate Hector Bellerin – a ploy that was invited – who had Ceballos within short passing range.

Making the move infield to Ceballos, or maybe Xhaka, Maitland-Niles was asked to provide the first option and Aubameyang the second. Give Aubameyang the space to attack and he will score goals. Sadly, Crystal Palace sussed this out quite early on, and there could have been more scope for danger if the makeshift left-back had been steadier on the ball.

In attempting this, Arteta sought to use his player absences to his advantage. In theory it was a wise approach, yet on the day an overall lack of quality throughout the forward line saw moves break down, while not enough pace centrally let Palace get back into shape.

Ultimately Arteta’s plan didn’t work. He attempted to turn weakness on its head without luck. However, the structure defensively was solid enough to avoid defeat against a side who are normally an ill-placed banana skin.

Crystal Palace Deserve Credit

Arsenal are an ordinary side. Palace succeeded in making Arsenal look exceedingly ordinary.

Undeniably there was lethargy for large periods from the home side. Spells of dominance followed by overindulgence in possession. However, credit where credit is due, Palace put in a superb shift.

Their shape was faultless, their reading of danger outstanding. On numerous occasions there will be sides who sit in their low block and are forced to call upon clutch individual interventions or the occasional stroke of luck. On Thursday Palace didn’t even allow Arsenal to get into zones where such instances could occur.

On the ball Xhaka was poor, but equally, the gaps between the midfield four and the defensive line were so compact any pass into Emile Smith Rowe would’ve been eye of the needle levels of precision.

The 20-year-old found some joy linking with Saka in the right channels, and while his movement was good all evening, he was marked out of the game by an organised Eagles outfit. Cheikhou Kouyate had Alexandre Lacazette in his pocket all evening, and when the chance arose to break out from the back, Eberechi Eze showed why he’s so highly-thought of across the division.

Not enough from Arsenal. More than enough from Palace.