Reiss Nelson has given us his thoughts on Wednesday’s 1-0 win against Brentford in the Carabao Cup.
Reiss opened the scoring with a tidy finish into the bottom right corner to set up a fourth round clash with West Ham United.
“It’s good man, it’s nice to be back out there on the pitch, nice to be starting with some familiar faces, Emile, Eddie,” he said. “And it was good, very confident feeling to win, get a goal, and delighted to be in the next round.
“I know Eddie likes to press, he’s aggressive upfront, baggy touch from their centre-back and Eddie pounced on it, kind of laid it off to me, but I thought the defender got there before me, I was a bit upset - but I carried on with my movement and I got it, slotted it into the bottom corner.”
We had to weather a storm of Brentford attacks in the second half, but showed plenty of defensive grit to hold onto the clean sheet.
“No of course, like Mikel said second half they are going to come at us, lot of long balls, a lot of deep crosses, but I thought we defended the box really well, Tomiyasu and Gabriel, big lads at the back were defending the box really good for us, it was up to the wingers and attacking midfielders to get the second scrappy balls and to do well with it and I think we did that,” Reiss said.
He was really happy for Emile Smith Rowe, who made his 100th Arsenal appearance on the night.
“I am really pleased, but I know he’s going to be upset because he done a nice bit of trickery in the box and should’ve scored a hundred percent, but he’s a great player, great lad and one of the best players I’ve played with, been through the whole rankings with him, so congrats on your 100th game mate!”
On Mohamed Elneny’s return, Reiss added: “Of course, we’ve got a really group of players now, buzzing to be part of it and Elneny is one of the oldest in the team, been here so long, deserves every bit he gets, and today got a great reception from the fans, he nearly scored at the end as well so it was good.”
It was a good test on Wednesday against Premier League opposition, and Reiss was pleased with the challenge ahead of the weekend’s game against AFC Bournemouth.
“Of course and it’s hard sometimes to come into the team not quite having played a lot of football, I think the boss put his trust in the starting eleven today and today did really good, like you said Brentford are not a rubbish team, we proved that we can take it all the way,” he said.
“In the next three days we’ve got to recover and be ready for an away match against Bournemouth.”
