Arsenal defeated Brentford 2-0 in the Premier League on Wednesday night, restoring their lead at the top of the table to five points over Manchester City. Arteta chose not to risk Viktor Gy\u00f6keres from the start and Mikel Merino repaid that faith with his second goal in as many games.<\/p>\n
Merino opened the scoring 11 minutes in, meeting a clever piece of skill from Noni Madueke before Ben White\u2019s cross found the Spaniard from close range. That finish injected life into a cautious opening period. David Raya produced a decisive intervention when he diverted a Kevin Schade header onto the crossbar, the only save he was required to make as Arsenal recorded another clean sheet.<\/p>\n
Arsenal controlled possession for long spells. Martin \u00d8degaard returned to the starting XI as he continues his recovery, with Mart\u00edn Zubimendi and Declan Rice providing midfield balance. Rice tested Caoimh\u00edn Kelleher from distance in the second half, and a second chance fell to Merino from the rebound, only for him to stumble as he stretched and knock the ball out of play.<\/p>\n
Noni Madueke was Arsenal\u2019s primary threat in the first half, his inventive backheel and deliveries causing problems for Brentford. Gabriel Martinelli had opportunities but was unable to add the second until late. Riccardo Calafiori forced a good save from Kelleher before Bukayo Saka converted a late rebound to make sure of the win; Kelleher\u2019s parry removed power from the initial shot but the bounce carried the ball over the line.<\/p>\n
The evening was marred by a couple of injury concerns. Cristhian Mosquera was forced off injured before half time, Declan Rice left the pitch hobbling later on, and Piero Hincapi\u00e9 underwent a concussion assessment during the game.<\/p>\n
Substitutes included Jurri\u00ebn Timber, Bukayo Saka and Eberechi Eze, with Viktor Gy\u00f6keres introduced late. Player of the Match: Mikel Merino.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Merino header and Saka strike sealed a 2-0 win, restoring Arsenal’s five-point lead in the table….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4875,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,728,172],"tags":[984,826,199],"class_list":["post-4876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-brentford","category-epl","tag-ben-white","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-cristhian-mosquera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4876","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=4876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}