Mikel Arteta Says Ipswich Win “10 Times” More Satisfying Than Crystal Palace Thriller

By The Editor
on 29th December 2024

Arteta happy to return to defensive security…

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta admitted that he was more satisfied with the 1-0 routine win against Ipswich Town on Friday evening than the chaotic thriller at Selhurst Park last week.

While we won 5-1 against a vibrant Crystal Palace side, we conceded 15 shots at our goal and needed several key saves from David Raya to keep us in the game.

The chaotic nature of the affair in south London led to an end-to-end game and caused spaces at both ends of the pitch with our attacking department coming out on top.

However, that’s not the type of game Arteta wants and given the pride he takes from preventing the opposition having a sniff at our goal, the game against Palace likely gave him heart palpitations.

The win against Ipswich was more down his alley and while it didn’t provide the goals we deserved, the visitors never looked like scoring.

“In terms of how well we control the position, 10 times, because we conceded 14 or 15 shots against Palace,” Arteta told the press when asked to compare our last two results.

“And it’s nothing that we normally do. So overall, I think this one was much better. But, it’s about the goals as well, and the beauty of it, and entertaining people, and that one probably was better for them.”

Arteta desires ‘dominance’ rather than ‘control’ and his idea of a dream game is not allowing the opposition to even get close enough to David Raya to know what colour his jersey is.

This trait as a coach has many believing that he’s conservative, though that’s not reflected in the numbers or what we consistently see on the pitch.

We dominate games and often force teams back to the edge of their box and keep them there, but our dominance is rarely reflected in the scoreline.

Gabriel, Declan Rice, and Kai Havertz missed clear chances to make the scoreline against Ipswich correlate to the game we witnessed. Yet those missed opportunities forced us to nervously see out a result in the final minutes of the game.

There’s only one remedy for this issue and that’s delving into the market for more clinical forwards.