Oleksandr Zinchenko scored his first Arsenal goal as the Premier League leaders fought back to beat Aston Villa on Saturday but not everyone was impressed by the Ukrainian’s performance, via FanDay.
With a first league crown in two decades in their sights, Zinchenko’s experience and title-winning nous could prove to be integral between now and May.
And the former Manchester City man certainly chose a good time to open his Gunners account; fizzing a well-placed shot into the bottom corner of Emi Martinez’s net, cancelling out Philippe Coutinho’s strike and setting up a dramatic comeback win at Villa Park.
Zinchenko’s performance, in a way, epitomised that of Arsenal’s as a whole. Inconsistent. The good, and the bad, in equal measure. It was he who gave the ball away in the build-up to Ollie Watkins’ rapid-fire opener.
A much-improved display during the second ‘45, meanwhile, is not enough to save the £30 million full-back from Viktor Leonenko’s fire.
“He is everywhere. You look at just how much he does; superfluous,” argues the former Ukraine international, believing that Zinchenko would benefit from simplifying his game to an extent.
“He gets the ball, runs forward, then back with it. Why is he doing this? Because for some reason Oleksandr needs to appear active.
“For me, the worst thing is that, after he plays the pass, he walks. In England, everyone has to run like clockwork. I don’t understand why he needs to do that.
“He does useless work and tortures himself. Secondly, it slows down the game. That’s not how football is played! Well, it’s good that he scored and, thus, he gets away with it.”
There is a reason why Zinchenko remains such a key part of Mikel Arteta’s gameplan; the four-time Premier League champion vital to Arsenal’s cultured build-up play, drifting effortlessly from the left to the centre while opening up space for the likes of Gabriel Martinelli and Granit Xhaka.
“This group of people can achieve a lot of good things,” Zinchenko says, via The Mirror. “If we work hard together and keep going in this way.
“It’s about the Premier League as well. It’s the strongest league in the world. And the reaction we showed in the second half (against Villa), we showed our character.
“I remember at City, we were also losing, down at half-time. But in the second half, the response from the team was perfect. I would call these kind of dramatic games, they are like ‘champions games’.
“I’m not saying anything about the title yet, because there’s still a lot of games to play. But this is the sort of character that you need, the direction we need and that is the key.”
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