Arsenal began preseason with a 4-1 win over Girona, and the performance reflected the balance, quality and depth that Mikel Arteta now has available. The contest was disrupted later by substitutions, but before that point Arsenal had already taken control and made the stronger impression.<\/p>\n
Girona briefly found a route back into the game after the interval when Arnau Mart\u00ednez won in the air from a corner. Arsenal answered quickly. Dowman restored the two-goal advantage with a sharp finish into the bottom corner, and Gabriel Jesus then converted after a Ben White recovery to make it 4-1 in the 55th minute. From there, the match became more fractured, though the outcome had been settled in all but name.<\/p>\n
Dowman stood out as Arsenal\u2019s most dangerous player. He continually looked capable of producing something decisive, and that feeling proved justified. In one early move he dropped into midfield, received the ball, turned away from his marker with a strong first touch and played a perfectly weighted pass that put Havertz through one-on-one with the goalkeeper. When Girona scored, Dowman responded by taking the ball in the right half-space, cutting inside and driving a shot into the bottom corner. His creativity and finishing were both evident, but so was his understanding of when to release the ball, when to keep possession moving and when to beat a man.<\/p>\n
Tzolis also offered encouraging signs in his Arsenal debut. The left winger, signed from Club Brugge, held the width on the left and worked within Arteta\u2019s positional structure. His first goal for the club came after Ricardo Calafiori found him in space inside the box, and he finished after a slight deflection. He is still imperfect, especially on his weak foot, but he ended the game with the joint-most touches in the opposition box.<\/p>\n
The back line was equally notable. With Jurri\u00ebn Timber, Gabriel and William Saliba absent, Arsenal still fielded Ben White, Piero Hincapi\u00e9, Christian Mosquera and Ricardo Calafiori. Girona managed only two shots in the first half, both from outside the box and off target. Ethan Nwaneri, back from Marseille, completed all 26 of his passes but had limited impact in the final third.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal beat Girona 4-1 as Dowman, Tzolis and the defence all made promising preseason impressions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18205,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal-match-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}