Arsenal comfortably come through a potentially tricky trip to Port Vale

Photo: ©️ Capital Football

Port Vale (0) 0 v Arsenal (1) 2

Eze 8

Trossard 86

By Kaz Mochlinski at Vale Park

Football League Cup

Third Round

Arsenal comfortably came through a potentially testing trip to Vale Park, with a goal in each half being enough for a 2-0 win over Port Vale and a place in the last 16 of this season’s League Cup.

The two strikes bookended the match, with Eberechi Eze scoring his first goal for Arsenal after just seven minutes, and substitute Leandro Trossard making sure of the victory finally four minutes from full-time.

Eze extinguished any early nerves in the unfamiliar surroundings by slotting home calmly in the opening exchanges, meeting a pass from the left wing first-time and guiding the ball into the bottom corner of the net.

It finished off a fine, flowing Arsenal attack, moving the ball swiftly from right to left for Gabriel Martinelli to run at the opposition defence and play a dangerous low cross into the penalty area perfectly synchronised with Eze’s arrival.

Martinelli missed out on being credited with an assist, as this was given to Myles Lewis-Skelly for a step-over back-heel of the ball on its way to Eze. It had looked like a clever dummy, but he may have made a faint and crucial contact.

If the goal to give the Gunners the lead was a classic Arsenal creation, the second was simply route one, with a ball lofted over the top by William Saliba for Trossard to take on a run cutting inside off the left.

The home fans thought that Trossard might have been marginally offside, but there was no VAR in use at Vale Park to spoil his celebrations after driving a right-footed shot low past the diving goalkeeper.

So clinical and composed were the conversions of the two chances when they came that, on reflection, Arsenal will wonder how they did not score in the 78 minutes between Eze and Trossard’s goals.

The portents for Port Vale were not particularly promising when the Gunners struck so soon after the start, with a heavy humiliation being highly possible at that point for the team down in 19th place in English football’s third tier.

As befits a leading Premier League club, the visitors had over 80% of the possession and made 11 scoring attempts, but Port Vale dropped back into a 5-4-1 formation and got 10 men behind the ball to mostly frustrate Arsenal’s attacking efforts.

Photo: ©️ Capital Football

Although Mikel Arteta made nine changes from the 1-1 draw with Manchester City at the weekend, the Arsenal head coach still put out a very strong side, with around half of the XI being regular first-choice players.

Bukayo Saka captained the team while getting more than an hour’s game time as he builds his fitness back up from his hamstring injuries. Christian Nørgaard and Kepa Arrizabalaga were given their first starts for the Gunners.

Mikel Merino played as a “false number nine”, with Eze and Ethan Nwaneri just behind in support. It did not work all that ideally, and Viktor Gyökeres was sent on in the second half, along with Declan Rice and Gabriel Magalhães.

Ultimately, the result was not a bad outcome for both sides, as Arsenal progressed into the next round without any undue alarms, while the League One team performed very creditably and kept the scoreline respectable.

“I think what was at stake in this game is your reputation as a club, as a team, as an individual” noted Arteta afterwards. “l’ve been here long enough to understand it’s going to be very tricky.

“I think we started the game really well, very dominant, scored a goal, and had another three or four chances that we didn’t manage to score. In the second half we lost a little bit of grip on the game.”

And he added: “We lacked a bit of dominance and control. With a few adjustments, we got back to that, and we scored a beautiful goal, the second goal, the ball from Willy and the quality of Leo on the finish is top drawer.

“In general, happy with the win, the clean sheet and the debut of Kepa for us today, Ebz’s goal, his first for the club, and then the fact that, even making nine changes, the team can still perform really well.”

Arteta’s assessment may have been more positive than that of dispassionate observers at Vale Park, especially as Arsenal were aided by Port Vale also making changes from their regular league line-up.

Among those that the Valiants dropped to the substitutes’ bench were both their captain and their top scorer. While Ben Garrity has recently returned from injury, Devante Cole was very much in form with three goals in three matches.

However, following promotion at the end of last season, Port Vale had been without a win in their opening seven games in League One, including five defeats, before two consecutive victories eased some of the immediate relegation fears.

The Vale manager Darren Moore feels that he has to focus on climbing up the table, so against the Gunners he gave George Hall a full debut, and only brought on Garrity and Cole for the later stages of the contest.

Photo: ©️ Capital Football

Even then Cole almost took the tie to a penalty shoot-out when he intercepted a weak Arsenal clearance with a quarter of an hour remaining and hit a long-range rocket that initially looked like being the equaliser before eventually clearing the crossbar.

The absence of an unlikely upset did not spoil the sense of occasion surrounding Port Vale’s biggest home match of this century so far. Especially as the rare visit to Vale Park from one of the country’s top clubs could not have come at a better time.

The Potteries side ran out onto the pitch in a unique throwback kit including a cream-white shirt without a sponsor’s logo and just the initials PVFC in an old-style script brought back specially for Port Vale’s 150th anniversary season.

It also happens to coincide with Vale Park having reached 75 years since the ground was opened in 1950 as the “Wembley of the North”, so the celebrations of both the landmarks for the club and venue had a fitting focal point in the arrival of Arsenal.

Much has changed over the years. There has not been a railway behind the Railway Stand for over six decades, since the closure of Burslem train station. More recently, Robbie’s social club has been added in one corner of the ground.

It is named of course in recognition of Port Vale’s most famous former youth team midfielder and now Honorary Club President, Robbie Williams, who’s “Let Me Entertain You” is played before home games, along with Elvis Presley’s “The Wonder of You”.

Robbie could not be present in person this time, but nevertheless the crowd figure of 16,326 was the highest at Vale Park since Liverpool attracted 16,557 in the third round of the FA Cup in January 1999, when the tie finished 0-3.

It is another FA Cup encounter, in the fourth round in January 1988, that is repeatedly recalled as being among the most memorable moments in the history of Vale Park and Port Vale, when Terry Venables’ Tottenham Hotspur were beaten 2-1 by the Valiants.

Spurs’ great North London rivals, Arsenal, learned the lessons of the past and avoided a similar shock this time. Instead, the Gunners will hope that a different historical link will prove to be a lucky omen for them in the coming year.

A late Port Vale goal now for 1-1 and a deciding shoot-out would have replicated the result from Arsenal’s solitary previous appearance at Vale Park in January 1998, which ended with the Gunners getting through the FA Cup third round replay on penalties.

That extra-time experience was one of the toughest tests for the team of Ian Wright, Dennis Bergkamp, Marc Overmars, Patrick Vieira and David Seaman on the way to winning the first double of Premier League and FA Cup under Arsène Wenger.

Saka and his side had a far easier evening on Arsenal’s return to Port Vale, but Arteta will wish that, as before, visiting Vale Park will lead to Wembley once more for the Gunners - and another coveted league and cup double.

Photo: ©️ Capital Football

Port Vale: (3-5-2) Gauci - Debrah, Humphreys, Connor Hall - Jordan Gabriel (Clark 66) (Ojo 81), George Hall (Garrity 66), Croasdale, Walters, Headley - Paton (Stockley 70), Curtis (Cole 70)

Arsenal: (4-1-4-1) Arrizabalaga - White (Gabriel Magalhães 71), Saliba, Mosquera, Lewis-Skelly - Nørgaard - Saka (Dowman 63), Nwaneri, Eze (Rice 81), Martinelli (Trossard 81) - Merino (Gyökeres 71)

Attendance: 16,326