Arsenal Analysed: Reasons why we beat Palace | Analysis | News

We made it seven wins in a row in all competitions by beating Crystal Palace 1-0 at Emirates Stadium, to stretch our lead at the top of the Premier League table to four points.

Ebere Eze came back to haunt his former club with a stunning winner in the first half, but what were the other reasons we managed to hold onto an important victory? Adrian Clarke has gone through the footage and stats to uncover why we squeezed past the Eagles.

patience required

Under the expert guidance of Oliver Glasner, Crystal Palace are one of the best out-of-possession sides in the Premier League, and they made life awkward for us in a tactical affair.

Applying a total of 492 pressures, they rarely let the man on the ball settle, successfully blocking off passing lanes into our forward players early on.

Enjoying just five first half touches inside the Palace box, they contained us with an extremely well early on.

These examples show how solid their shape was, and it explains why we had to make a lot of sideways passes.

Our first half XG was just 0.11, and it wasn’t until the 33rd minute that we made our first attempt on goal. That was our longest wait for a shot in Premier League action since April 2021.

Thankfully, a set piece goal broke the deadlock, and in turn, that opened up the game for us.

eze’s mercurial moment

Facing his former side, Eberechi Eze proved to be our match-winner with a technically brilliant 39th-minute volley.

Shots-wise it was a case of 13th time lucky in a Gunners’ shirt for our talented No.10, who latched onto Gabriel Magalhaes knockdown quite superbly to scissor kick the sweetest of strikes into the bottom corner.

Plenty of credit must go to our Brazilian centre back though, for his awareness of where the space was inside the danger zone.

Sensing that there was a big hole around the penalty spot (circled in red) Gabriel was smart in the way he put the ball back into that area.

Eze anticipated the bounce of the ball much faster than Adam Wharton to get there first, but even so, the degree of difficulty for the shot was exceptionally high.

Signed for moments like this, Eze’s skill and ability helped him dispatch a chance that was far more difficult than he made it look.

Switching it up in the second half

Mikel Arteta tweaked our approach at the start of the second half, demanding more dynamism and bravery on the ball, and this had a tremendous impact on the contest.

Accepting that it was not going to be easy to play through the thirds, especially in central areas, our distribution got noticeably longer.

From half-time onwards, we made twice as many long passes, and the proportion grew from 5.7% to 15.6%.

Long passes

Arsenal
First half
Second half

Long passes
18
35

Long pass %
5.7%
15.6%

This terrific, chipped ball from Gabriel Magalhaes into Leandro Trossard is a fine example, catching Palace cold from a rare lapse in concentration.

Trossard flicked the ball past Dean Henderson but at the far post Bukayo Saka was denied by a quality Marc Guehi intervention.

Arsenal also switched their preferred side of attack from half-time onwards.

During a measured first half we leaned towards the right side as a matter of course, but in truth we did not get much change out of the impressive Guehi and Tyrick Mitchell

With Declan Rice pulling wider in the second period, we targeted the opposite flank instead, causing Daniel Munoz, Ismaila Sarr and Chris Richards a lot of problems.

First half v second half

The Gunners mustered seven second half shots compared to three before the break.

midfield did the dirty work

Facing a midfield ‘box of four’, this wasn’t an easy game for Declan Rice or Martin Zubimendi, who had plenty to think about in and out of possession.

Overall, their concentration levels and discipline were excellent though, and they got stronger the longer this match went on.

Zubimendi did some sterling defensive work, often from inside his own box when dropping back to lend his central defenders a hand.

The Spaniard made six clearances, and several of them came at crucial junctures when the visitors had us stretched.

This clearance late on (below) was much needed during a period of late pressure from Glasner’s side.

Rice, despite picking up an early knock, showed great heart throughout the match too.

He tracked back on numerous occasions to break up potentially dangerous situations, especially in the second half.

When you analyse Rice and Zubimendi’s combined defensive chalkboard it shows they made six tackles, seven clearances, seven ball recoveries and four interceptions between them.

Down the central spine, they played their part in us keeping our tenth clean sheet in 13 games so far in 2025/26.

rice and zubimendi’s defensive chalkboard

Below are the tackles, recoveries, interceptions and clearances from our midfield duo.

big gabi: the main man

This was yet another stellar performance from in-form Gabriel Magalhaes, who impacted this London derby at both ends of the pitch.

He assisted Eze’s winner and could easily have scored from another two set pieces, first crashing a header onto the bar (below) and then narrowly missing the target before colliding with the far post.

He was denied a certain goal when a slight touch from Daniel Munoz diverted the path of the cross just as it was about to reach him.

Defensively, Gabriel was a man mountain.

In those rare moments where we were pulled apart the Brazil international always seemed to be in the right place at the right time.

This block from Sarr was one of several first half interventions.

And later in the match he raced across the box to deny Jean-Philippe Mateta following great work by Eddie Nketiah on the left.

Gabriel often had to jump into midfield to engage with Sarr too, but his decision making was near faultless.

Is there a better central defender in the Premier League right now? I don’t think so.

In a tough, hard-fought encounter ‘Big Gabi’ was a colossus.

Copyright 2025 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.