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Hint of frustration from Leandro Trossard?
Saturday’s win at Aston Villa was huge for Arsenal, especially given the context of what happened against Unai Emery’s side last season.
This was the first away game of the season and with trips to Manchester City and Spurs on the horizon, a win was crucial to give the team an early shot in the arm in terms of belief and confidence.
If Arsenal had lost, everyone would have been talking about Villa getting the better of them again, so there was plenty of pressure on them going into the game.
So the way they came through it was very impressive. Yes, they had to ride their luck at times and had Ollie Watkins had his shooting boots on they may well have ended up losing.
But you have to make the most of what luck you get and Arsenal did that with those two goals from Leandro Trossard and Thomas Partey.
David Raya’s save from Watkins at 0-0 was absolutely huge. Trossard’s arrival changed the game obviously, but had Raya not made that save earlier in the second half the game would have been very different.
It was a magnificent stop. Watkins obviously should have done better, but the speed of Raya’s reaction to get himself back up so he could make the save was remarkable.
That’s the second weekend in a row that Raya has made a crucial save for Arsenal. The Spaniard has had a fine start to the season and is really showing his importance to the side.
Trossard was superb after his introduction as well. He’s such a ruthless finisher and he showed that again when he scored with his first touch.
He’s clearly not very happy at starting games on the bench. You could see there was a fair bit of pent up frustration during his celebration and that is understandable.
He’s an excellent player and is undoubtedly Arsenal’s best finisher. I do think he will start against Brighton this weekend, but you can see why Arteta likes to bring him off the bench because his record as a substitute is so good.
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