Arsenal overwhelmed Wigan 4-0 to coast into the FA Cup Fifth round. The Gunners scored all 4 goals in the opening 30 minutes of the match, throttled down, and cruised home. Other than Riccardo Calafiori picking up a knock in warmups (which had the ripple effect of pushing Myles Lewis-Skelly out of the midfield to LB), it was a perfect outing for Mikel Arteta’s men — minutes in the legs, build some confidence, and all that jazz. It’s the first time Arsenal have advanced this far since winning the FA Cup in 2020.
Noni Madueke opened the scoring 11 minutes into the game, tidily first-touching a magnificent Ebere Eze through ball. Gabriel Martinelli doubled the lead eight minutes later, also put in by Eze. Not to be outdone, Owen Goal got on the scoresheet in the 23rd minute after Madueke found Bukayo Saka running into the box through the inside right channel to create chaos with a cutback. Gabriel Jesus scored four minutes later scoring from a lovely Christian Norgaard ball over the top.
Obvious caveats about the quality of the opponent aside, there were a few things from the first half you’d like to see Arsenal replicate going forward, to the extent they can against better defending. Both of the opening goals came from Ebere Eze dropping much deeper to receive the ball. Getting him the ball with him already moving forward or the space to turn forward might be the tonic he needs to jumpstart things. The ball to put Madueke in was spectacular, perfectly weighted.
You’d like to see Bukayo Saka in a position to make that interior run between the CB and RB more often. Getting Saka into more threatening positions and closer to the goal can only be a good thing in comparison to having him pretty much always coming off the wing needing to beat one or more defenders. He was in a better starting position for that movement today because he was playing the Martin Ødegaard role, but there is no reason Arsenal couldn’t let their attackers be a bit more fluid and swap areas to set that up.
That sort of interchanging happened today with Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli, although primarily on the left side of the pitch. It hearkened back to the Brazilian’s early time with Arsenal, those pre-World Cup months when the attack was really clicking. The front three (or four) were constantly switching positions and overloading areas to create positive chaos.
The match kind of ended after Arsenal went up 4-0 before 30 minutes had elapsed. The Gunners took their foot off the gas and Wigan were more than happy to see out the clock. Marli Salmon made his home debut for the club about midway through the second half, and young goalkeeper Tommy Setford replaced Kepa in the 85th minute.
The only negatives on the day were the pre-match injury for Riccardo Calafiori that took him out of the starting lineup and Ben White needing to come off late in the second half. It didn’t look as if Ben White’s problem was a serious one. It seemed like he sat down more out of an abundance of caution. Let’s hope it was the same thing with Calafiori’s removal from the announced XI.
The 5th round draw is tomorrow at 1:30 pm ET, with matches to be played March 6th-9th.
