Arsenal came into this weekend’s fixtures with perhaps more pressure than any other club in European football with the title race slowly starting to slip away after key injuries caused them to stumble in both big and lesser fixtures.
So Saturday’s battle at the Emirates against the biggest upstarts on the continent, Nottingham Forest, was clearly a must-win matchup for the Gunners, with Forest boasting one of the two best defenses in the league this season alongside current leaders Liverpool.
Arsenal, after failing to win a Premier League match since Oct. 5 against lowly Southampton, finally delivered the goods in emphatic fashion with a 3-0 drubbing of this season’s shock Champions League contenders.
Their victory was made all the sweeter – and much more meaningful – with news of a Tottenham blowout victory…because that 4-0 win came against long-time Premier League champions Manchester City.
Although Liverpool are a much more formidable title foe for Arsenal in 2024/25, the impact of the dual results on Saturday meant everything to the Gunners, and Mikel Arteta can use this sudden offensive uptick against a legitimately great defense as fuel going forward in a title race that is still far from over.
And it was no surprise to see that, central to the attacking effort, were the contributions of right winger Bukayo Saka and captain Martin Odegaard – the two men who are very clearly Arsenal’s best attacking players.
Odegaard had been hampered by injury this season, but his whopping six key passes and three dribbles completed were a reminder that he is also one of the best players in the entire Premier League – and may be taking a big leap to grabbing the mantle of the league’s best playmaker from Man City rival Kevin De Bruyne.
Meanwhile, Saka has been consistent as ever this season as both a goal threat and playmaker out wide, as he both scored and assisted for the Gunners (Odegaard had an assist, too) with four key passes of his own.
Defensively, William Saliba kept the most in-form striker in Europe, Chris Wood, under wraps with another stalwart display at the heart of the Arsenal defense, further enhancing his reputation as one of the best all-around center backs on the planet with a team-high 98 passes and a pass completion percentage of 98.
Together, Saliba, Saka, and Odegaard are quite obviously a cut above the rest of their teammates, who are all, at worst, solid Premier League starters. But these three have the sort of quality that reaches championship mettle status – you know, the kind of quality Invincible players like Sol Campbell, Robert Pires, and Thierry Henry had back in the day.
Arsenal are going to go as far as these three players carry them and, most importantly, as far as the cogs in the wheel can support them. And some of those cogs can be borderline world-class players themselves when they are at their best, such as Kai Havertz, Riccardo Calafiori, and Declan Rice.
Saturday’s win over Nottingham Forest was a reminder of what Arsenal can be when Arteta lets his best players take over, and it was also a reminder of how lucky we all are – and I don’t just mean Arsenal fans – to watch young talents like Odegaard, Saka, and Saliba.
For one day, they will be the names we look back on with the warm nostalgia we have reserved for Campbell, Pires, and Henry.
