Arsenal Are Up And Running In Style As They Begin The 2022/23 Premier League Season With A Win Against Crystal Palace.

Arsenal began the 2022/2023 season up and running in style with a 2-0 win against Crystal Palace.

William Saliba, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Gabriel Jesus put up an impressive performance on their debuts for the North London club.

The Gunners came into the game at Selhurst Park on Friday night looking to start off on a positive note, after losing 2-0 in last campaign’s opener at Brentford.

Starting on a bright note, they dominated the early stages which saw Gabriel Martinelli missed a great chance in the 4th minute. 

The Brazilian further opened the scoring on the night, as he jumped highest to head home a headed pass from Oleksandr Zinchenko in the 20th minute. 

It was Arsenal's first of the season, as well as the Premier League's opening goal of the 2022/23 campaign.

However, after the break, Palace grew back into the match and threatened to level the scores.

But a combination of poor finishing from Eberechi Eze and Wilfred Zaha, coupled with fine defending from William Saliba, and an excellent goalkeeping from Aaron Ramsdale kept Arsenal in the lead.

The Gunners finally got their much needed second goal after Bukayo Saka saw his cross deflect off Marc Guehi’s head past a helpless Guaita into his own goal in the 85th minute to seal all three points for Arsenal.

French 21-year-old defender Saliba was the star in Arsenal's opening day crucial win against a pro-active Patrick Vieira's side.

Two years after signing for Arsenal, Saliba  spent last season on loan at French club side Olympique Marseille, and was named as Ligue 1 Young Player of the Year and was also awarded a position in the Team of the Year.

Despite interest from Marseille to make the move a permanent one, and from other European clubs, he decided to move back to the Emirates Stadium.

Manager Mikel Arteta reserved special praise for the young defender's Man of the Match performance on his winning debut;

"Saliba was superb tonight. Let him play and let him develop. We had a plan for him before we wanted to expose him and he showed how good he is as a defender."

The victory for Arsenal, makes it a 50th Premier League win for Mikel Arteta as manager, as hiss ide continued their fine form from the pre-season that saw them win six of seven games.

Arteta sung his team praises after the win, he said; “To win here, you need to suffer, we’ve done it and that’s part of the mentality we want to build, to come to places like this and win.

“The most important thing is to win the first match, to build confidence and momentum, and then you can talk about things we need to improve - there were quite a few today, to be honest.

“You need the right balance because if you come short in terms of physicality in this game, you’re going to be exposed. To have players at the back of the right size is really important in these kinds of matches.

“That’s the resilience we need to win football matches and see them through. Aaron Ramsdale did incredibly well from the one-on-one and won the game for us.”

The Spaniard also praised Jesus for his role in the opening goal from a set piece: "One of the set-piece coaches created the routine for the first goal and we practised it yesterday.

“Gabriel Jesus has the fear factor: he is always on your shoulder, he’s never standing still, he’s always moving and he’s so sharp. He has the intuition to get the ball off you so it’s difficult for defenders.”

Arsenal are bidding to end their multi-year exile from the Champions League this season after falling short to Tottenham of a top-four finish last season.

They begin their preparations for next weekend's match against Leicester City, as they hope to maintain their fine start.