Arsenal are into the Carabao Cup final after beating Chelsea 1-0 and there were some big positives and a couple of negatives to take.
In what was a fairly dull affair at The Emirates, Chelsea never really threatened as the Gunners did enough to see them off and were rewarded for their patience with a late winner from Kai Havertz.
Nevertheless, it was the result that mattered and remarkably, Arsenal are still on course to win four trophies this season.
Fill in the blank: Mikel Arteta MUST START ___________ up front for Arsenal in the Carabao Cup final… 👀
For Mikel Arteta, there was plenty to absorb from the performance. And it wasn’t all positive either.
With that, we’ve looked at the THREE big winners and the TWO major losers from tonight’s win over Chelsea.
Winners
Kai Havertz: With Viktor Gyokeres once again struggling up top and offering little, it was left to the returning German to get the crucial winner late on.
Since his return, Havertz has been both good for Gyokeres and not.
On one hand, he has helped the Swedish striker in terms of giving him space and helping him at the top of the pitch. On the flip side though, Havertz has also shown in just a few games what a forward player should be offering for the Gunners.
Ahead of the final, Havertz is looking like being Arsenal’s top dog up front.
Bukayo Saka: He might have missed the game through injury but when he doesn’t play, it’s obvious Arsenal are a worse team.
Noni Madueke and others can do the business in parts but Bukayo Saka is very much Arsenal’s chief threat and creator.
On this performance tonight, Saka has nothing to worry about in terms of his position in the first XI.
Hopefully, his injury is nothing serious and like Havertz, Saka will be a certainty to play at Wembley.
Arsenal’s defence: In a nutshell, it looked like men against boys at times.
Chelsea didn’t over-commit and it was an easy enough night for the Arsenal defence but part of that comes from Chelsea knowing how good they have to be to beat the Gunners’ back four.
The likes of Gabriel, Saliba and Timber were simply brilliant and with defence so key to Arsenal’s success, we simply leaned on that tonight to get over the line.
Losers
Viktor Gyokeres: After a positive enough few weeks, this was back to the Viktor Gyokeres we got used to seeing prior to his mini run lately.
Gyokeres is just not offering enough when things aren’t running smoothly. Arsenal are all about control in most games and Gyokeres, despite not getting service, just offered nothing.
Having paid more than £60m to sign him in the summer, he simply has to offer more.
This season feels like a learning curve for Gyokeres. Sure enough, he’s scoring at times but games like tonight highlight how far away he is from being the complete package.
Eberechi Eze: A lot of Arsenal fans have been calling for Eze to get more chances in the first-team but based on tonight, he’ll have a lot to do keep his place.
With no Martin Odegaard and no Bukayo Saka, the stage was there for Eze to impose himself on the game and show why he should play regularly.
Do you agree with our Arsenal player ratings vs Chelsea?
Any harsh/generous scores?
In the end, his performance – or lack of – was only overshadowed by how poor Gyokeres was.
Eze has his moments and he does seem to be learning how to do the less glamorous stuff.
But in the main, he needs to seize his chances more often and on tonight’s display, it will be back to the bench for the former Palace man.
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