3 hours ago
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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 teams 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.
“They’re really tough opponents, really good at what they do,” said Mikel Arteta. “It’s very difficult to get sequences with threat and momentum, so I’m delighted with the performance.”
In a way this was the platonic ideal of 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 spontaneity and, in the end, they were simply better than opponents who made mistakes in the build-up to all three goals, one for Martín Zubimendi and two for Viktor Gyökeres.
Coaches obsessed by pressing patterns probably loved it, but this game will not live long in the wider collective memory. For a long time it seemed in danger of being mutually respected into stalemate, both teams watching, probing warily, even if in the end Arsenal’s probing proved far more dangerous.
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. But a goal came before half-time, thanks largely to a rare moment of sloppiness from Omar Alderete. The Paraguay international was caught in possession by Noni Madueke and, as Arsenal worked it to the other side of the pitch, Sunderland struggled to get set, leaving 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 Kai Havertz, whose square ball was squirted in by the falling substitute Gyökeres. 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 on halfway that allowed Gabriel Martinelli a run in goal. “We lost two balls and conceded two goals,” said a characteristically phlegmatic Regis Le Bris. “It doesn’t mean our game wasn’t good. We had opportunities. We didn’t seize those opportunities and if you don’t seize them against an opponent like Arsenal, the game is gone.”
Sunderland 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 problem is a lack of goal threat, their six goals away from home better only than Wolves. They offered 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.
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.
One more challenge ticked off as Arsenal edge closer to the finish line. ““I’m going to have a beautiful dinner,” said Arteta. “Tomorrow I’m going to prepare for Brentford – and for sure I’ll be watching the big game. But we still have to win so many games.”
And if City slip up at Anfield, that line will seem a lot closer come Sunday evening.
