Five Key Takeaways after Arsenal beat Wigan 

Here's Charlie Ashmore with his must-read verdict after every Arsenal game as the Gunners eased past Wigan at the Emirates  

1 - That’s how you put a cup tie to bed

There is no doubt the draw was kind to Arsenal, giving us a home draw against a struggling League One side. 

But there was still a job to do and that is exactly how you do it. 

Start quickly, put the game to bed then ease through, hopefully expending as little effort as possible. 

That first 30 minutes were perferction as they delivered the desired outcome and perhaps provided pointers towards the way to approach the final third of the season. 

The only downsides to the day were Riccardo Calafiori’s pre-match injury. What on earth is going on – I cannot recall a season in which we have had so many warm up injuries. And then we had the worrying sight of Ben White going off after on pitch treatment, although he seemed to be walking fine and sat  on the bench so hopefully it was just precautionary.. 

Let’s hope it’s nothing serious because we now have a period where we are going to be playing two games every week for as long as we remain in the Champions League. 

We need everybody available to enable Mikel Arteta to juggle resources appropriately. 

2 - Positivity earns its reward

What was really noticeable especially during that first period was our willingness to get the ball forward quickly. 

A marked contrast to some of our recent Premier League performances where we have occasionally given the impression of playing through treacle, here it was all about the through ball – quick, direct, devastating. 

Two superb balls from Eberiche Eze opened Wigan up beautifully and the finishes from Noni Madueke and Gabi Martinelli were unerring.

The directness of Madueke’s wing play coupled with Bukayo Saka’s attacking instincts from an unfamiliar central role, caused the defensive mistake for goal three and a delightful ball from Christian Norgaard to feed Gabriel Jesus for a delicious chip over the keeper took the game from Wigan.

Now, I know Wigan are a struggling League One side and there were mistakes defensively but it was the willingness and desire to put pressure on them by looking for that direct option that helped create those mistakes.  

Viktor Gyokeres must have been shaking his head on the bench – that’s the sort of service he begs for. Not all those passes would have worked in the league but right now we appear easy to defend against because we are so ponderous in the League.

Are we ponderous because of the defences we face or does our ponderousness make the defences seem harder to break down? 

There’s only one way to find out and that is to start trying to play through teams with a more direct and crucially quicker approach. Especially as our own defence is not looking as impregnable as it was earlier in the season.

3 - Eze shows what he can do

This was a game that showed off Eze’s attacking qualities in bucketloads.  Two fantastic assists. Lots of progressive passing.  The creative intent was there from him and the players ahead of him thrived as a result.

Those balls he played for Noni Madueke and Gabi Martinelli were absolutely perfect. 

The judgment was superb – he spotted the space, he knew the runs were coming and he delivered beautifully paced passed on the perfect line enabling them to pick them up without breaking stride. 

The challenge is for him to work the same space in Premier League matches to enable him to thread those balls through. 

It’s a bit like a quarterback in American Football just needing to hold the space and the ball long enough for the perfect pass to appear. 

It was interesting to see the dynamic with Bukayo Saka in the middle.  In the League he tends to play with the Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi pairing which means he has more attention on him from the opposition’s holding midfield. 

With Saka alongside him, attention was split.  He has shown what he can deliver but he needs to show he is not a flat track bully. And his defensive work still needs to improve.   

Our defensive structure relies on all eleven players contributing and he remains a vulnerability in that regard with players finding him easy to drift past.

4 - Norgaard raises questions as to his under-use

I cannot understand why we have not seen more of Norgaard. 

The two players who worry me most are Rice and Zubimendi. 

I think they have played an awful lot of football this season and as we enter the home straight that is a real concern for me.  Arteta has been better this season at using his squad depth but I am baffled at how little football Christian Norgaard has played. 

There have been perfect opportunities to give him minutes and rest one or other of our midfield rocks and they have not been taken. That has a double whammy effect. 

Firstly the load on those two is higher than it needs to be and secondly, Norgaard, if he has to be thrown in because, God forbid, either of them is unavailable through injury, has not got enough minutes in his legs and is rusty. 

With two games every week for the foreseeable future, the need remains – Rice and Zubimendi cannot and must not play every game. 

So this performance was a useful reminder of his undoubted qualities. Unfussy, simple and effective. 

He is the perfect back up.  And that ball for Jesus…..wow.

5 - Is Saka an option in the middle

This was a really interesting development – forced by the pre-match injury to Calafiori. 

It was already going to be interesting to watch Lewis-Skelly in midfield as the original line-up promised but this was something else. 

It meant we had Eze and Saka paired in attacking roles and very much changed the dynamic not least because it gave the Wigan defence a complete new problem. 

That was apparent with our first goal when Saka’s position was sufficiently advanced to draw a defender out creating the gap for Eze to pass into and Madueke to run into.

Then his natural instincts saw him combine with Madueke to create the third goal. I really like this as an option. 

Saka has the quality to play anywhere and it presents a new challenge for defenders to deal with because he cannot help but be a more direct option than Odegaard or even Eze. 

So maybe against the low blocks we typically face in Premier League matches, we have stumbled on a new variation which challenges the defensive structure which is essential to a low black’s success. 

I suspect Premier League coaches are already thinking about how they would deal with this.