Arsenal Flawless on Preseason Tour with Arteta’s Touch of Magic

Arsenal on Fire!

This latest victory over Chelsea means Arsenal have yet to lose a match on their pre-season tour. They have scalped Nurnberg, Everton, and Orlando on their journey to last Sunday’s meeting with Chelsea.

Arsenal faces Brentford behind closed doors on Wednesday, then Sevilla at the Emirates on Saturday before their Premier League opener at Crystal Palace on August 5.

Running Down What We Witnessed From Arsenal

The pairing of William Saliba and Gabriel paid dividends once more, anchoring the defensive line after keeping their second clean sheet together.

Saliba looked a totally different player since returning from his loan at French team Marseille, where he was voted as Young Player of the Year. Saliba was one of only two Arsenal players to play the entire 90 minutes against Chelsea and he is just 21 years old.

Arteta experimented with a 4-2-3-1 formation with Ben White at right back and new signing Oleksandr Zinchenko at left-back. Both looked solid in nullifying Chelsea’s attacking threat down the flanks, though the latter was only featured for 45 minutes after his mega £32m move from Manchester City.

Arteta also had high praises for Man of The Match Gabriel Jesus, who scored his fourth goal of the pre-season campaign and will be one of the main players to watch in the upcoming season.

Coach’s Corner: Arteta speaking on the performance after their win

"I’m really happy. With the performance in general and with the tour. The attitude from a club perspective to show here, and all the work we have done and understand how big we are and the amount of support that we get."

Despite an amazing run Arteta is still looking to strengthen his team as speculation kept swirling over the head of Nicholas Pepe, who has so far had an underwhelming time at the Emirate since joining for a club record fee of $72 million.

Pepe scored 27 goals and 21 assists from 112 starts in all competition and has been very quiet in preseason so far.

Contract talks are also on the table for Saka who was one of the scorers over the weekend past and has become a fan favorite since making his senior debut from the Arsenal’s youth academy. Thomas Partey and Granit Xhaka in central midfield and Odegaard in the number 10 role are the driving force behind Arteta’s new look team.

After a superlative performance, Mikel Arteta said:

"There were a lot of positives in the way we played but it was a friendly match. It was a test. There are still a lot of things we have to do better, so don’t get carried away. To beat Chelsea 4-0 is a great result but this is a friendly and in the Premier League it will be completely different.(Via: arsenal.com)"