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3 weeks ago
8
There are times when the best thing for a side is an uneventful win. Titles are won less in the big set-piece games than against mid-table sides in the easily forgotten circumstances of a Saturday afternoon. Arsenal weren’t brilliant against Sunderland, but they were good enough to win comfortably, and that increases their lead at the top of the table to nine points, adding a degree of extra pressure to Manchester City’s Sunday visit to Liverpool.
In a way, this was the platonic ideal of Mikel Arteta’s football. Not a huge amount happened but most of what did was in or around the Sunderland box. It was bitty, stop-start, built around set plays and devoid of much in the way of imagination or spontaneity. Coaches obsessed by pressing patterns probably loved it, but it will not live long in the wider collective memory. For a long time the game seemed in danger of being mutually respected out of existence, both teams watching, probing warily, even if in the end Arsenal’s probing proved far more dangerous.
For a long time there were only flickers, splutters and glimmers of Arsenal intent. Kai Havertz, preferred to Viktor Gyökeres, headed a decent chance wide in the first minute. Trai Hume sliced a Noni Madueke cross over his own bar. Declan Rice slashed a drive a fraction wide. Things happened without much sense of pattern or flow. There was none of that sense of remorseless squeeze that there had been at Leeds last week, or even at home to Manchester United the week before – and for that Sunderland must take credit.
But a goal came nonetheless before half-time, thanks largely to a rare moment of sloppiness from Omar Alderete. The Paraguay international was caught in possession by Madueke and, as Arsenal worked it to the other side of the pitch, Sunderland struggled to get set, leaving Martín Zubimendi in space as Leandro Trossard rolled the ball into his path. His shot had just enough slice to arc in off the inside of the post.
Arsenal’s second, midway through the second half, came from a not dissimilar source. This time it was Nordi Mukiele squandering possession but again Trossard was key, playing in Havertz, whose square ball was squirted in by a falling Gyökeres, who had come off the bench. But that is what Arsenal are good at: they hold opponents at arm’s length, stifle them as an attacking threat, force them into errors and then capitalise. The third, also scored by Gyökeres, stemmed from a Reinildo misjudgment and an injury-time breakaway by Gabriel Martinelli when the game was done.
With an ankle injury denying Granit Xhaka a return to the Emirates, Sunderland were unchanged from Monday’s emphatic win over Burnley. Xhaka’s absence had been a major factor in the defeat at West Ham a fortnight ago, but Sunderland were far better here even if they never looked like winning. They have not won away in the Premier League since beating Chelsea in October and while nobody at the Stadium of Light is complaining about a campaign in which they have in effect secured safety with a third of the season still to go, away form is an obvious area in which they could improve.
The main problem is a lack of goal threat, their six goals away from home better only than Wolves in the top flight. They offered very little beyond direct balls up to the combative Brian Brobbey, who occasionally looked like he might link up with Habib Diarra breaking from midfield without ever actually doing so.
Although they occasionally threatened to get behind Arsenal early in the second half, their only real chance came from the predictable source of a set play, Hume thumping a free-kick into the box, where David Raya fumbled under pressure from Dan Ballard and Brobbey scuffed an awkward chance from the dropping ball.
So Arsenal roll on. None of their challengers could take advantage of their new year wobble in which they leaked seven points in three games. Whatever doubts might have begun to crystallise then seem to have dissolved and, while they will have harder games, the nature of their draw at the Stadium of Light meant this was one of their remaining fixtures that appeared as a potential pitfall. It’s one more challenge ticked off as they edge closer to the finish line. If City slip up at Anfield, that line will seem a lot closer come Sunday evening.
