Arsenal surged eight points clear at the top of the Premier League as Bukayo Saka\u2019s brace inspired a 4-1 rout of Crystal Palace on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Gabriel Martinelli opened the scoring in the first half at the Emirates Stadium to put the leaders on course for a sixth successive league victory.<\/span><\/p>\n It was redemption for Martinelli, whose missed penalty condemned Arsenal to Europa League last-16 defeat in their shoot-out against Sporting Lisbon on Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n Mikel Arteta\u2019s side needed just 45 minutes against struggling Palace to erase the bitter taste of that loss.<\/span><\/p>\n Saka followed Martinelli\u2019s goal by doubling Arsenal\u2019s lead before half-time.<\/span><\/p>\n Granit Xhaka netted the third after the interval and Jeff Schlupp\u2019s reply was no consolation as the influential Saka\u2019s second capped Arsenal\u2019s stylish display.<\/span><\/p>\n Arsenal now have a substantial eight-point lead over second-placed Manchester City, who took the weekend off from Premier League duty to thrash Burnley in the FA Cup quarter-finals on Saturday.<\/span><\/p>\n With a game in hand on Arsenal and a crucial clash with the Gunners looming on April 26, Pep Guardiola\u2019s champions will still believe they can win a fifth title in six seasons.<\/span><\/p>\n But heading into the international break, Arsenal have ensured the fate of the title race will be in their hands in the final 10 games.<\/span><\/p>\n After surrendering top spot with a defeat against City in February, Arsenal have responded impressively, showing maturity and composure far beyond the Gunners\u2019 teams that routinely underachieved in recent years.<\/span><\/p>\n Arteta deserves immense credit for transforming a side that blew their top four place last season.<\/span><\/p>\n Less than a year later, Arsenal, the first English side ever to win nine London derbies in a single season, have the look of champions-elect.<\/span><\/p>\n Arteta had labelled the Palace clash as the most important match of his managerial career and his players once again rose to the challenge.<\/span><\/p>\n Arsenal played a gruelling 120 minutes against Sporting before their Europa League campaign ended in painful fashion.<\/span><\/p>\n Such a quick turnaround could have tested Arsenal mentally and physically.<\/span><\/p>\n But they had the ideal opponents in a Palace team now without a win in their 13 matches in 2023 and reeling from Friday\u2019s sacking of boss Patrick Vieira.<\/span><\/p>\n Vieira was a key member of the last title-winning Arsenal side 19 years ago and Gunners fans chanted his name throughout the game.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2013 Rampant Arsenal \u2013<\/span><\/p>\n Palace, led by interim boss Paddy McCarthy, nearly took a shock lead when Wilfried Zaha\u2019s shot hit the post, deflected off the diving Arsenal keeper, Aaron Ramsdale, and rebounded just wide.<\/span><\/p>\n That served as a wake-up call for Arsenal and they made the breakthrough in the 28th minute.<\/span><\/p>\n Saka wriggled free in the penalty area to collect Ben White\u2019s pass and pulled his cross back to Martinelli.<\/span><\/p>\n The Brazilian forward took a clever touch to elude Joel Ward before driving a clinical finish past Joe Whitworth from 12 yards for his sixth goal in his last eight appearances.<\/span><\/p>\n Saka ensured Arsenal\u2019s relentless pressure paid dividends again in the 43rd minute.<\/span><\/p>\n He played the ball back to White and his return pass was perfectly weighted for the England forward, who planted a cool finish into the far corner from close-range.<\/span><\/p>\n Arsenal were rampant and Xhaka put the result beyond doubt in the 55th minute.<\/span><\/p>\n A sumptuous exchange of passes around the Palace area left the visitors bewildered before Xhaka applied a deft finishing touch to Leandro Trossard\u2019s through-ball.<\/span><\/p>\n Schlupp stabbed in Palace\u2019s first league goal in nearly seven hours after Arsenal failed to clear a 63rd-minute corner.<\/span><\/p>\n But Saka had the last word with his 13th goal this season, a fine first-time finish from Kieran Tierney\u2019s 74th-minute pass.<\/span><\/p>\n AFP<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Arsenal surged eight points clear at the top of the Premier League as Bukayo Saka\u2019s brace inspired a 4-1 rout<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=972"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":974,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972\/revisions\/974"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nArteta had described Arsenal\u2019s run-in as \u201c11 finals\u201d and he made six changes to freshen up his team for the first of those hurdles.<\/span><\/p>\n