Straight
They are not the Invincibles of 2004, but this Arsenal is on its way to writing a glorious page for the London club.
Few dare to shout it out loud, the team has been building foundations for three years, but it is also so inexperienced that among the 20 eleven with the youngest average age that started games this season in the Premier, there are 12 Arteta line-ups.
He still seems to be under construction, but he doesn't stop scoring points and seems immune to the increasing pressure.
Arsenal, in a test of character, jumped to the Amex Stadium in Brighton on the end of the year afternoon after learning that their pursuers, Manchester City and Newcastle, had barely added a point in their home matches against Everton and Leeds.
And the gunners
took out the cannon
: Saka scored in the first minute and completed the victory (2-4) Odegaard, who ruled the game with the silk of his left foot, Nketiah and Martinelli.
Now Arsenal lead the table with seven points clear of Manchester City and nine over Newcastle.
MNCM.
City
1
Ederson Moraes, Manuel Akanji, John Stones, Aké, Rodrigo, De Bruyne, Rico Lewis, Bernardo Silva (Julián Álvarez, min. 87), Erling Braut Haaland, Mahrez and Grealish (Foden, min. 86)
Eve Everton
1
Jordan Pickford, Mykolenko, Patterson (Coleman, min. 69), James Tarkowski, Coady, Ben Godfrey (Doucouré, min. 91), Amadou Onana, Idrissa Gueye (Thomas Davies, min. 77), Alex Iwobi, Gray and Calvert- Lewin (Neal Maupay, min. 69)
Goals
1-0 min.
24: Erling Braut Haaland.
1-1 min.
64: Grey.
Referee
Andy Madley
Yellow cards Bernardo Silva (min. 16), De Bruyne (min. 29), Patterson (min. 32), James Tarkowski (min. 44), Amadou Onana (min. 62) and Neal Maupay (min. 100)
The two most decisive footballers in the Premier did not play in the last World Cup.
They are Norwegian and they are expected against Spain in the debut of Luis de la Fuente leading the team in the first date to get the ticket to the Eurocup.
Haaland commands by excess in a mixture of exuberance and precision.
Against Everton he scored his twenty-first goal in the Premier, in which he averages one goal every 59 minutes.
In the Champions League, he lowers that average by nine minutes.
Odegaard is already Arsenal's top scorer, with seven goals, but above all he is the delicious setter of the team's game, also dressed in the stripes of the captaincy when he just turned 24 years old.
On this day the Viking couple, without ceasing to be under the spotlight, had a face and tail.
Fifteen seconds into their game Haaland went to the ground after a jump with Ben Godfrey, Everton's central defender.
The boot on his left foot was thrown off and his ankle limped, Guardiola sent Foden and Julián Álvarez to exercise while he decided if the Norwegian giant could continue on the pitch.
He did, but seized with an overexcitement that led to derangement.
He aimed for the goal in a shot with almost no angle that went to the side of the net and celebrated it after a low cross from Mahrez in which space was made between the defensive tangle of Everton.
But Haaland ended up blurred in a game that went crazy,
in which City's rival managed at times to slow down and take refuge in interruptions to stay alive and wait for football, always indecipherable, to give him a prize.
Everton played his lottery, bought shares next to his goal and sang the jackpot (1-1) in the other, in his only offensive excursion, culminating in a shot from Demarai Gray that lined the squad from the top of the area.
The tie came with almost the entire second half to play and City came alive to show their usual offensive production, overwhelming in the final moments of the game.
But Everton entrenched themselves around Pickford, the feline goal of the English team, a guarantee when a crack opened in the wall.
Stones had finished off the post, Grealish got tired of taking shots that were blocked by the defense, Haaland fought against the world without touching the ball, Guardiola scrambled on the bench and found, perhaps too late, Julián Álvarez, Gündogan and, above all, to Foden.
Rodri had, finally, the last one, in minute 112. But City, who had already lost in their previous game at the Etihad, stumbled again at home.
Now the calendar points to two consecutive exits to Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford.
Guardiola was only dissatisfied with the score: “We played very well.
We did everything to win."
In Brighton, where nothing was easy for Arsenal, Odegaard was general captain in a test of the maturity of the leader of the Premier, who seemed to resolve the game with a 0-3 at the beginning of the second half, but found himself in trouble with a goal from the indomitable Japanese Mitoma and half an hour to play.
The locals went out of their way, had the ball and generated options to cut even more distances on the scoreboard, but after one of them, Arsenal wove a counter in which Odegaard took a monumental pass into space for Martinelli to define against Robert Sánchez.
Nothing is over.
Brighton closed the gap again and even celebrated a third goal in which the VAR found an unlikely offside.
They squeezed Arsenal, who stayed on their feet.
Manchester United, which builds its own solidity, also looks shiny.
In Wolverhampton he won (0-1) his second consecutive game after the farewell to Cristiano Ronaldo, who had no longer counted in the victory before the break at Fulham's home.
Throughout the season the team had not been in the top four, but 2023 begins in Champions League position, waiting for what Tottenham does in the match against Aston Villa in London.
Coach Erik Ten Hag seems to be holding the reins.
In the Wolves fiefdom he did without Rashford at the start amidst the general surprise.
"Internal disciplinary reasons," he warned.
Then the striker explained that he had arrived late for training because the sheets stuck to him.
Ten Hag gave him the stick and ended up pulling out the carrot.
Rashford came onto the pitch after the break and scored the winner.
Then the coach stressed the collective nature of his idea of football, which did not include Cristiano Ronaldo.
"If we are difficult to win, it is because we attack eleven and defend eleven."
They have only lost in one of the last nine days.
But Arsenal is eleven points away and Ten Hag doesn't expect many mistakes from the London team.
"If we want to get to the top we will have to win everything," he says.
Actually, today
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