"A match that will divide opinion" - Arsenal 1-0 Ipswich | On the Whistle

Hello guys, full-time here at the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal 1, Ipswich Town 0. I'm going to make a confession to you at the start of this video, I don't quite know how to analyse that game. Arsenal were completely dominant in every respect, apart from the scoreline. You know, controlled the territory, controlled the ball. At one point in the game they looked on course for Premier League possession records in terms of how much they had the ball, how many passes they were making. You know, James Benj was keeping an eye on if William Saliba was going to end the game with more passes than Ipswich did. It really was that one-sided and yet it was still only 1-0 and that does create a slightly sort of nervy sensation in those final few minutes. I think Arsenal's second half produced chances. I mean, Gabriel is inches from a second. I think for me he does pretty much everything right on that header. The timing of the run is good, the jump, the header, he gets it down, he goes for the corner. It's just one of those things where it's a fraction that means it goes past the post rather than in the goal. Mikel Mourinho had an effort saved. There were one or two other moments. Martin Odegaard shot over. You know, it could quite easily have been two or three and then I think probably we're never giving this game a second thought. Do I think Arsenal were at their scintillating best in attack? Certainly not. Do I think they missed Bukayo Saka? Yes. You know, I just think the threat level when Gabriel Martinelli gets the ball on the right-hand side is not the same and I think the relationships are not the same and that has a massive impact. You know, that understanding that Odegaard, Timber or White and Saka have, that intuition is just not quite there yet for Martinelli on that flank. I think Saka just makes defenders think twice in a way that Martinelli doesn't. I don't think he was poor, Martinelli. I just think he's not Bukayo Saka on the right wing and who is, frankly. Anyway, so I think you can sort of look at it two ways. It was a game of total dominance but equally a game in which Arsenal probably should have done more with all the possession that they had. That said, I think in some respects Mikel Arteta will have enjoyed this game more than he did the resounding win at Crystal Palace. I know that sounds absurd but the fact that we gave almost nothing away to the opposition, I think he'll love that. Defensively, this was a really strong performance. The fullbacks in particular were excellent. Jürgen Timber continues his good form. I thought Myles Lewis-Skelly, another big night for him. Picked to start again. Completed 90 minutes as well, possibly for the first time, which I didn't necessarily anticipate. I think he's done terrifically well and I expected Calafiore to come back in tonight. That he didn't shows Arteta's faith in Lewis-Skelly, that he's prepared to be patient with Calafiore. He trusts him and I thought he had the better of Omari Hutchinson all night. Who, by the way, was on for a hat-trick of dives at one point in time and yet no booking. I don't know if the ref took some sympathy on him back at his former club but that was a strange one to me. So there we go. Arsenal get the three points. It was three points they needed. Keeps some semblance of pressure up on Liverpool. Moves us into second place. I do think when you compare and contrast the Liverpool game yesterday against Leicester to this one here, Liverpool went behind in that game and just roared back and even when they were 1-0 down you always fancied them to score. They just looked so threatening going forward. We haven't quite looked like that team from the majority of this season and I think today was just more of the same in that respect. We're a different side. We're more about the positional play, the control, but we're not necessarily killers. Maybe we saw a bit of that. It's interesting at 1-0 what's the change we make. Mikel Mourinho comes on, a midfielder for a striker in Gabriel Jesus. Yes, Kai Havertz goes and plays up top and I actually thought that's when we had our best spell. Mikel Mourinho comes on and we have a flurry of chances in about five minutes but we didn't have attacking players to really change the game. Three or four left backs on the bench when you break it down. So yeah, a strange one tonight but we got the job done. We got the three points. I think our tech will be delighted that we gave absolutely nothing away. Ipswich did defend well for the most part. They were quite unambitious when they went behind. It didn't really change their style of play. So space didn't open up as you would normally expect after you go 1-0 up. That was the curious thing. We got that relatively early goal but the game just never really took off from that point on. I think the second half of the first half, the game sort of got away from us all a bit and then second half Ipswich improved slightly. We had those chances. I mean maybe the less said about it the better guys. I kind of need to decide was this a very controlled performance that was a bit unfortunate in that we didn't quite get the two or three goals that we needed to make it look more comfortable or was this a game where we didn't do enough in attack? I feel like the second one kind of fits a little bit with the story of the season so far. So it's tempting to say that's not coincidence but if you are that much in control you are going to win most of your games. I don't think we'll see many sides quite so passive as Ipswich were though. Quite so toothless. I think generally in the Premier League everyone's capable of scoring a goal aren't they? So you need more than one goal to win a game. I'm going around the houses a bit here guys. I wasn't kidding. I don't quite know what to make of that. I need to think about it more. I need to write about it shortly so I need to make my mind up. Let me know what you think in the comments. I think there'll be a bit of a split on this one. Just my feeling. Just my hunch. Take care guys and I'll speak to you all soon. Bye-bye.