Crystal Palace v Arsenal Review – Martinelli and Saka secure the points

Arsenal started this game with confidence after our excellent preseason, and in all fairness we should have been 1-0 up if Martinelli hadn’t fluffed a sitter after just four minutes, but Arsenal didn’t drop their heads and controlled the game for the first quarter hour.

Palace tried to get back into the game with many long balls up to Zaha, but they didn’t get their first attempt on goal until the 42nd minute but Ramsdale was alert and managed to push it away.

Strangely, Granit Xhaka got booked and you could call it a moment of madness when he dived clumsily miles away from his marker. Awful decision which got him his first card of the season, but it won’t be his last!

But we went into the break with a fully deserved lead…

Palace’s tactics in the first half was to pump up long balls and it gave them a few half chances, and they had a couple again at the start of the second half too, but they had a massive chance after ten mins when Eze was left through one on one with Ramsdale and tried to put it through Aaron’s legs, but luckily it never made it.

Just after Odegaard had a free kick from just outside the box but curled it just past