{"id":146530,"date":"2025-10-26T17:29:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T17:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/146530\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T17:29:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T17:29:13","slug":"arsenals-eze-sinks-former-club-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/146530\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal&#8217;s Eze sinks former club Palace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Eberechi Eze scored against his old club as Arsenal recorded a 1-0 win against Crystal Palace at the Emirates to extend their lead at the top of the Premier League.<\/p>\n<p>Eze fired home from another Arsenal set-piece with a sumptuous half-volley six minutes prior to the interval before Gabriel struck the crossbar in the second half as Arsenal saw out their seventh consecutive victory.<\/p>\n<p>Palace failed to muster a single shot on target against an Arsenal side which has now conceded just three times across 13 matches in all competitions so far. Arsenal&#8217;s clean sheet here was their fifth in succession.<\/p>\n<p>It was a far from a spectacular performance from Mikel Arteta\u2019s men, but the triumph takes them four points clear of second-placed Bournemouth in the table, and six ahead of Manchester City following their 1-0 defeat at Aston Villa.<\/p>\n<p>Defending champions Liverpool are a further point off the championship pace.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/sport\/soccer\/2025\/1021\/1539780-arsenal-impress-in-second-half-to-rout-atletico-madrid\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arsenal scored four times in 14 electric second-half minutes as they rain riot against Atletico Madrid in the Champions League earlier this week.<\/a> But on Sunday, they required 33 minutes to register their first shot.<\/p>\n<p>Fresh from his quickfire double against Atletico, Viktor Gyokeres did well to bounce off Maxence Lacroix and hold the ball up before bringing Declan Rice into play. Rice found Leandro Trossard but the Belgian\u2019s first touch allowed the ball to get stuck under his feet and his subsequent shot was straight at the Palace stopper.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking prior to Sunday\u2019s match, Arteta revealed he hatched his masterplan to transform Arsenal into set-piece kings a decade ago.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday night, Arsenal became the first team across Europe\u2019s top five leagues to register 10 goals from free-kicks this season, and on the 39th minute that became 11.<\/p>\n<p>Rice\u2019s inswinger from the right-hand side was met by Gabriel at the far post, and who else was on hand other than Eze, to rifle the bouncing ball home with a delicious half-volley to hand his new employers the lead.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Declan Rice controls the ball during the English Premier League football match between Arsenal and Crystal Palace at the Emirates Stadium in London\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/00236146-614.jpg\"\/><br \/>\nArsenal&#8217;s 11th goal from free-kicks this season was taken by Declan Rice in the 39th minute<\/p>\n<p>There was no celebration from Eze against the club he served for five years, but this marked a much-needed first league strike in seven attempts for the England international \u2013 with manager Thomas Tuchel watching on from the Emirates directors\u2019 box \u2013 and for Arsenal, a 38th set-piece goal in the league since the start of 2023-24 season.<\/p>\n<p>Five minutes into the second period and the crossbar prevented Arsenal from increasing that tally to 39. From a dead ball, Rice played a give-and-go with Eze before his left-footed cross was met by Gabriel but the Brazilian\u2019s header cannoned off the goal frame.<\/p>\n<p>Rice was there for the follow-up but Henderson stopped his shot with an outstretched arm. A trademark Saka long-range shot with his left instep then fell wide.<\/p>\n<p>Arsenal continued to dominate possession but, with their advantage standing at just one, Oliver Glasner\u2019s players always remained in the contest.<\/p>\n<p>However, Arsenal\u2019s defence has been breached by just one team \u2013 Manchester City \u2013 from open play this season, and, in truth, the south Londoners rarely looked like becoming the second despite a nervier-than-expected finale.<\/p>\n<p>The only sour notes on another day of triumph for Arsenal in their pursuit of a first league title in 22 years arrived with injuries to William Saliba and Rice. The former was replaced at the interval, while the latter hobbled off in the closing stages.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"BOURNEMOUTH, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 26: Eli Junior Kroupi of Bournemouth celebrates after he scores a goal to make it 2-0 during the Premier League match between Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest at Vitality Stadium on October 26, 2025 in Bournemouth, England. (Photo by Robin Jones - AFC Bournemouth\/AFC \" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0023614b-614.jpg\"\/><br \/>\nEli Junior Kroupi scored his fourth goal in three games for Bournemouth<\/p>\n<p>Sean Dyche&#8217;s first Premier League match in charge of <b>Nottingham Forest<\/b> ended in defeat as <b>Bournemouth<\/b> climbed to second place in the table with a 2-0 victory at the Vitality Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>Forest were hoping to build on momentum from Thursday night\u2019s 2-0 Europa League win over Porto \u2013 their first victory across all competitions since August.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, they fell behind when Marcus Tavernier opened the scoring directly from a 25th-minute corner.<\/p>\n<p>Junior Kroupi doubled Bournemouth\u2019s advantage before the break, the fourth goal in the 19-year-old\u2019s last three Cherries appearances.<\/p>\n<p>Lyle Foster came off the bench and scored a dramatic last-minute winner as<b> Burnley<\/b> snatched a 3-2 Premier League victory away to bottom side <b>Wolves<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>It marked six months to the day since the hosts last won in the league \u2013 a 3-0 win over Leicester \u2013 and their wait for a first this campaign continued as they let in a late goal for the fourth game in a row.<\/p>\n<p>The game had a feel of an early season &#8216;six-pointer&#8217; for this campaign\u2019s relegation battle and Burnley sensed the tension in the air at Wolves early on.<\/p>\n<p>They pounced into a deserved two-goal lead courtesy of Zian Flemming\u2019s first pair of Premier League goals, both assisted by Quilindschy Hartman.<\/p>\n<p>The Clarets looked comfortable but the hosts made it a level game out of nowhere thanks to Jorgen Strand Larsen\u2019s penalty and Marshall Munetsi\u2019s first of the campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Scott Parker\u2019s side initially surrendered a two-goal lead, which looked like it would deny them a first victory on the road until Foster struck in the fifth and final minute of second-half stoppage-time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eberechi Eze scored against his old club as Arsenal recorded a 1-0 win against Crystal Palace at the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,19,17,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-146530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115441655458584803","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}