It was far from a straightforward result but Arsenal managed to get the job done against Brentford in the third round of the Carabao Cup. In what was an end to end game, the Gunners scraped out a win through Reiss Nelson and that goal proved to be enough to send Mikel Arteta’s men to the next round.
Arsenal were without a host of their top stars, including the trio of Bukayo Saka, William Saliba and Declan Rice but the job was done with a host of replacements filling up the spots in proper vacation.
The Gunners will now take on another Premier League opposition in West Ham in the next round of the Carabao Cup but Mikel Arteta is first of all pleased to have scaled past the first test.
Arteta shares his thoughts after Brentford win
Speaking after the game, the Gunners boss said: “I’m very happy because you are in or you are out,” he said. “We came to Brentford, we played against their best team and we had a lot of issues today to bring a squad together because we had seven important players with injury.
“We started the game really well and had a lot of control in the first half. We scored a really good goal and should’ve scored more and in the second half we played a lot of moments in the game that Brentford wanted.
“We started to play too direct and we didn’t keep the ball and struggled to get into the final third in the right way. When that happens, the game starts to be a stretch and a lot of long balls, a lot of duels, and then set-pieces – throw-ins, corners, free-kicks. You have to defend with 11 players around your penalty spot and that’s a tough thing to do against Brentford.”
Arsenal were pushed to a corner in the second half of the game but goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale made a number of key saves to keep his side in the game.
Arteta said regarding that: “Yeah we had some really good blocks in the box, some really big defensive moments, especially one when Aaron made a save and I think the ball hit the post, so really pleased with everybody, especially now that we have a lot of injuries, and really pleased that we find a way to win this game and stay in the competition”.
