Leandro Trossard double secures victory for Arsenal at 10-man Ipswich

Mikel Arteta will have spent more arduous Easter Sundays hunting hidden chocolate eggs.

Aside from brief concern for Bukayo Saka’s raked achilles – an incident for which Leif Davis received his very early marching orders – this was as undemanding an afternoon as the Arsenal manager could have envisaged on the path to the more important matter of a Champions League semi‑final with Paris Saint‑Germain.

Arteta will put his players through tougher training sessions ahead of that showdown than the exertions required of them at Portman Road.

The upshot of this 4-0 win was that Liverpool are not Premier League champions; not yet anyway. They will be – of that there is only mathematical but virtually no practical doubt. For now, though, the title remains unclaimed for a little while longer.

Similarly, Ipswich are not yet relegated, but – as acknowledged by Kieran McKenna even before this defeat – their football will be played in the Championship next season. An implausible five wins to see out the season would likely still send them down on goal difference. If this match marked the reading of their last rites in the top flight, they appeared to hear them in a stupor.

By the time Davis was shown a straight red card for a tackle that possessed an abundant capacity to injure but no hope of winning the ball, his side were two goals down and staring at a task that appeared near impossible. His dismissal, with almost an hour remaining, confirmed as much.

Saka continued after receiving treatment, but an ice pack was strapped to his ankle upon his substitution in the second half. Arteta played down any lasting damage: “He was a bit sore, but it’s nothing serious, so it’s good. He cuts him from the back. I don’t think it’s intentional at all, but it’s dangerous because he cannot really react to anything, because you cannot see him coming.”

The match ceased to exist as anything even resembling a contest following Davis’s departure, although Arsenal’s dominance had been abundantly clear from kick-off, jogging and sometimes walking their way into a healthy lead.

Both early goals followed a similar script, emerging from a right side where Ben White, Martin Ødegaard and Saka started together for the first time since November.

Saka, in particular, caused all manner of problems. His first cutback went via Ødegaard’s toe to Leandro Trossard who, loitering near the penalty spot, prodded past Alex Palmer while falling backwards. When Saka repeated the trick soon after, Mikel Merino’s backheel sent the ball towards Gabriel Martinelli who was able to tap into an empty net at the far post.

That Saka was credited with neither assist did nothing to deny his role as creator of both. The England forward instantly became the home fans’ primary target following Davis’s sending off, although they would have been hard pressed to challenge the decision with the benefit of replays. They did, at least, gain a modicum of perverse pleasure from his inability to add his name to the scoresheet despite multiple efforts.

“I probably thought at the start it was the highest standard we’d faced this year,” McKenna said of Arsenal’s first-half performance. “The red card makes it an impossible task in terms of getting back into the game.”

With one eye on the upcoming PSG semi‑final – Thomas Partey is suspended for the first game – Arteta had decided to use this as a practice for his likely setup, deploying Declan Rice in a deeper No 6 role and pulling Merino back into his more familiar midfield position. Aside from a couple of early skirmishes, where he stood up resolutely to the tricky figure of Julio Enciso, Rice may as well have not been there for all that he was troubled.

The absence of any jeopardy allowed Arteta to rotate his troops after the break, with Saka, Merino, Rice and Martinelli all able to put their feet up early.

From the ninth minute to the 56th, Ipswich did not even muster a shot, McKenna forced to revert to a 5-3-1 formation in the second half in a bid to prevent the floodgates from opening. It had some success, although Arsenal – exhibiting their set-piece prowess – added two more from short corners.

First, Trossard strolled unaccompanied to the edge of the six-yard box before swivelling on the ball and drilling low past Palmer. Then, Ethan Nwaneri cut inside and his shot took multiple deflections on its way into the net. It was nothing that their dominance did not deserve, and Arteta’s side is now unbeaten in 11 matches across all competitions.

“We are really happy; really happy with the performance,” Arteta said. “I think the first 35 minutes is one of the best we played this season.”

Ipswich fans have now endured seven successive home defeats, the club’s longest losing run at Portman Road. The Championship should provide some solace.