Eddie Nketiah scored Arsenal’s first goal as they defeated Nottingham Forest 2-1 on the first day of the season at the Emirates Stadium without the injured Gabriel Jesus.
Mikel Arteta, the manager of Arsenal, acknowledged that the forward’s performances and training had been so strong that he was unable to leave him out.
“A lot of players ask: ‘why am I not playing?’, and the thing is that Eddie is telling you: ‘look at all the reasons I’m giving you to play me’. When you play him, after you know you’re going to have that response because he’s not looking for excuses or anything, he’s looking at his own performance and what he can do for the team. This is the example that everyone has to look at.” remarked Mikel Arteta.
In a league opener for both sides, the match that might have easily gone other way, Mikel was delighted with the performance of his team.
“It’s always very difficult to win the first game, there’s something special with it,” he added. “You want to start well, and we’ve done it, and I think we’ve done it in a really convincing way, even though at the end, because of that goal we conceded, we made it a little bit harder than we should have for ourselves.
Nketiah opened the door for Arsenal.
“We were incredibly dominant, created a ton of opportunities, and didn’t give them anything. That’s what we have to do, especially when teams want to go here with a great low block and well-prepared defense,” Mikel added.
“We found two ways to score, and after that we should have killed the game earlier, so we don’t give any hope to the opponent, and that’s the next step.”
The home side dominated majority of the first half and deservedly got their reward in 26th minute following a brilliant assist from Gabriel Martinelli with Nketiah making no mistake in front of goal.
6 minutes later Bakayo Saka scored a spectacular goal from 25 yards out to put the game beyond reach and in the 82 minute, Nottingham Forest grabbed a goal through Taiwo Awoniyi, but it was not enough.
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Next Friday’s game against Sheffield United will be Forest’s attempt to recover while three days later, Arsenal will play Crystal Palace in a challenging test.
