Arsenal beat Bodo/Glimt 3-0 in the Europa League last night, and the visitors’ manager, Kjetil Knutsen, claimed that Mikel Arteta was not too kind on his team.
Even though the scoreline is flattering, it was not an easy game for us. The Gunners were made to work hard until the end, but we completely deserved our victory thanks to goals from Eddie Nketiah, Rob Holding and Fabio Vieira.
Bodo/Glimt manager says Arteta’s Arsenal subs ‘were not kind’ to his team
The Norwegians looked incredibly organised throughout the game and it was difficult to break them down. However, Arsenal performed very well and scored twice before the 27th minute to put us in the driving seat.
That scoreline did not change and Bodo/Glimt didn’t really get close to our goal in the first half. It seemed like we had done enough to win the game with the players on the pitch, but Arteta decided to bring on the big guns after the break.
In the 59th minute, to many people’s surprise, the Arsenal boss introduced Gabriel Jesus, Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard. Knutsen felt that it was not too kind of Arteta to do that when Bodo/Glimt were already 2-0 down.
He told Dagbladet after the game last night: “During the break, we talked about how we were a bit passive. We stopped the ball and did not take advantage of the spaces we had.
“In the second half we, looked a lot more like we should.
“But they were not kind to us when they put in Gabriel Jesus and Martin Ødegaard. Then, we meet quality. It’s world-class, quite simply.”
The Insider’s View:
Having played a really intense game against Tottenham last weekend and with an even more difficult fixture against Liverpool coming up, we expected the likes of Odegaard, Saka and Jesus to stay on the bench and relax.
Arteta, however, had other ideas, and all three of them were brought on to play over 30 minutes.
Jesus, like he has been all season, was the pick of the bunch. His spectacular bit of skill to dance past three Bodo/Glimt players was simply a joy to watch, and the way he just rolled the ball into the path of Vieira for our third goal showed his incredible vision.
The Brazilian will be our main man against Liverpool and Sunday, and hopefully, he can deliver then too.
Receive a digest of our best Arsenal content each week direct to your mailbox
