Arsenal 1-0 Crystal Palace LIVE – Reaction after Eze goal against former club secures Gunners victory

Oliver Glasner was full of praise for Arsenal after his Crystal Palace side’s defeat. Watch his reaction here…

Here’s the full post-match press conference from Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta.

More from Arteta on Eze, when asked about the pressure on him today against his former club not being easy to deal with: “No it’s not and that’s what big players do. He’s certainly a big player and hopefully that’s going to give him a big boost and confidence to generate many more moments like this because these are the moments that sometimes define a season.”

Arteta says he is unsure on what Rice and Saliba’s injury problems are.

“No because I don’t know. Not because I don’t want to tell you, because I don’t really know.

“With Willy (Saliba) there are two things related to his substitution and with Declan I don’t really know because it was a knock and I don’t know if it was his calf or Achilles or what it was.”

Arteta says Martinelli also has an injury worry but is hopeful it is not too bad.

“Yeah I think so,” he said when asked if he is okay.

“We have to check that one but he was a bit uncomfortable. He said he felt something but we don’t know what it is, if it’s a muscular issue or not, so tomorrow we will have more news.”

The Gunners boss also revealed Saka was struggling with illness in the lead up to the game.

“Saka has been ill. He hasn’t trained really so we didn’t know whether he was going to be fit. He made a big effort to be available today. The longer the game went he was going to fatigue and risk an injury, and we didn’t want to take that risk.”

“The way he did it, the manner he did, it was very similar to last year but against us when he scored from that corner. He’s got the ability to do that.”

Arteta on Man City dropping points: “No, I wasn’t aware (City were losing at half time), I just found out at the end of the game, I think most of the players as well.

“They’re not allowed their phones at half time so hopefully they didn’t know!

“A really positive weekend for us, especially because we did what we had to do and it shows the difficulty of the league and how complicated it is to win games.”

“Saliba had to come out after the first half.

“Declan was struggling from the first half with a knock that he took. The other one was Riccy (Calafiori).

“Let’s see how they recover.”

Mikel Arteta speaking in his post-match press conference: “I probably value this victory more than any other victory this season.

“We knew the difficulty of it, coming after playing every three days.

“We played against a team that in my opinion has been one of the best recently in terms of organisation, how difficult they make it and how frustrated they can make you. And the moment that you lose that concentration they will punish you for sure.

“We have managed to be very stable, playing the game we had to play.”

Crystal Palace defender Chris Richards speaking to Sky Sports: “Set-pieces are probably their forte right now. But we went toe-to-toe with the best team in the league.

“We are still positive. We take today on the chin and we keep trying to improve.”

Arsenal attacker Leandro Trossard speaking to Sky Sports after today’s win: “We’re really pleased with the win and another clean sheet. We need to keep going.

“When we get a set-piece we know we can score.”

Not a classic, but Arsenal won’t care as they get the job done with a 1-0 win thanks to Ebere Eze.

Wharton for Lerma, Mitchell for Sosa, and Uche for Munoz.

6 minutes of added time left to play.

Goalscorer Eze comes off for Lewis-Skelly.

Arsenal make a double change as Hincapie comes on for his Premier League debut to replace Calafiori.

Rice hobbles off after taking a knock and Merino replaces him.

Palace again cause Arsenal problems as Nketiah beats Mosquera for pace and squares it for Mateta, but Gabriel gets there to prevent the striker from getting a shot away.

Guehi then heads over from the resulting corner.

Palace have had a good spell in these last five minutes and are the team on top as they look for an equaliser.

Palace’s second change as Hughes replaces Kamada.

A nervy moment for Arsenal as Munoz delivers a great cross from the right for Nketiah. The striker jumps with Raya for the ball but the goalkeeper just does enough to stop him diverting a header on target.

So close to an Arsenal second!

It comes from a corner, with Gabriel meeting Rice’s delivery at the back post but heads wide.

Saka has had a quiet day by his standards and goes off to be replaced by Martinelli.

Palace make their first change, bringing on Nketiah against his former club in place of Pino.

Another big chance for the Gunners.

Gabriel plays a lovely ball over the top for Trossard, who takes it down but has to stretch and can’t quite divert his effort on target. He instead plays the ball across goal but Saka can’t get there and Palace clear.