Arsenal 2 - 1 Crystal Palace: Ramsey Wins It At The Death

With Arsenal's opening game heading towards a seemingly inevitable draw, Aaron Ramsey - the talismanic midfielder from last season's most successful period - popped up at the death to win it for Arsenal. Palace had seen Jason Puncheon sent off after two yellow cards, and Arsenal took advantage of the man advantage eventually with a close range finish from the Welshman. https://vine.co/v/M3KDMZjzB5E The first half had seen Arsenal come out of the blocks with real intent. Alexis was running with power and Wilshere was looking like he had had found glimpses of the form that saw him rise to prominence. After 30 minutes though, the Gunners began to look lazy in possession and their passes started to find the feet of Crystal Palace players in dangerous areas. After some scrappy defending, Hangeland rose highest at a corner and punished the zonal defending Arsenal players. The game lulled towards half time with little created by either side and Arsenal's passing game seemingly deflated. Koscielny brought the teams level though in injury time, with an opportunistic header from another set piece. Arsenal were in the ascendency in the second half, dominating possession and limiting Crystal Palace to defending for long periods. Despite their domination though, they never looked like they would wrestle the 3 points from their determined opposition. Arsenal were forced to bring on Monreal for Kieran Gibbs after, it would seem, the left-back picked up a knock in the early stages of the second half. Giroud was later introduced for the ineffective Sanogo and Chamberlain brought on for a tiring, and increasingly man-handled Jack Wilshere. Arsenal had the better of the second half exchanges, but Cazorla and Alexis looked laboured and offered little creative spark in a fairly numb Arsenal attack. Giroud managed to force an effort across the face of the goal after showing great strength and Monreal offered a few dangerous crosses from the left wing but the Crystal Palace defensive stood firm and defended resiliently. Chamakh escaped a yellow card until committing his 9th foul of the game and was lucky to not concede a penalty as he handled inside the box. The game continued to run away from Arsenal until Scott Dan was replaced by Delaney at CB having been forced off through injury and Dwight Gayle, another ex-Arsenal academy player, was brought on for the final 5 minutes to try and make the difference. It was then, in the final exchanges, that Crystal Palace's winger, Puncheon picking up a second yellow card for a late lunge on Nacho Monreal, putting an already stretched defence under even more pressure. And it was the extra pressure that eventually told, with the midfield dynamo, Aaron Ramsey, scoring from point blank range after Speroni made a great save. Ultimately Arsenal took all 3 points but in truth, they lacked the creative flair that the fans expect, with Cazorla and Alexis needing to improve against better opposition.