The game started as we expected with Arsenal going straight in for the kill and the Foxes on the back foot, but our first clearcut chance fell to Martinelli after 15 minutes.
It fell at his feet, but it looked like he wasn’t confident with his right foot and flicked it to his left and gave Leicester the time to react.
But 5 mins later he didnt fluff it and hit it with his right (yay!) in the centre of the box. He only scuffed it but it trickled into the corner of the net and we had the lead at last. Its his first goal of the season so hopefully his confidence will go up now from now on.
Arsenal kept up the pressure with lots of corners and possession but couldnt get through the physical Foxes low block. They were not averse to a few bookings either.
Ten before half time Havertz got a great flying header, but it frustratingly was just wide.
We had 5 corners in the first half but Leicester were flooding the 6 yard box and gave Gabriel no room at all.
It was quite a boring half until then, but with two minutes added on Martinelli suddenly had space on the left and Trossard was waiting in the middle and made no mistake. The whole 45 minutes has been all one way traffic, and I couldn’t see anyway back for the Foxes.
Until the sevond half kicked off!
In only the first half-minute we saw an actual Leicester attack. William aliba stopped Vardy from getting too far, but was rewarded with a booking for pulling him back. Incredibly from the freekick we saw the unthinkable when a header was deflected off Gabriel’s shoulder and Raya had no chance. The game was now back on!
Normal service was very quickly resumed however and from a Saka corner the ball finally arrived at Gabriel and he got his header in, but this time the keeper made a great stop to deny us our 3rd.
Hermansen again was brilliant again 5 minutes later when Trossard was set up by Saka and the shot looked unstoppable but again no banana.
Again it wàs all one way traffic from Arsenal until the hour mark when Buonotte flew down the left, but his his shot didn’t trouble Raya.
The Foxes were coming back into the game and the same winger made Raya work harder, and then suddenly they conjured up an amazing volley from Jossie and Arsenal were shocked to find the game back on equal terms with 25 minutes left.
Arsenal fought back strongly but wasted a couple of corners. Suddenly then Havertz found the ball at his feet, turned well but hit it on the turn but it was too close to the keeper who somehow blocked it.
We got our 11th corner with 18 minutes to go and Gabriel was only just blocked this time. Their keeper then made an awful kick out which ended up with Rice who set up a perfect chance for Trossard, but the keeper made amends for his error and stopped Trossard yet again.
Ndidi tried a crazy shot from a tight angle which was Leicester’s 5th attempt of the game, against Arsenal’s 29! But the score stayed level as we approached the last ten minutes.
Saka tried one of his famous cut ins but was cut down on the edge of the box which was clearly a foul and the ref refused to whistle as Arsenal had the advantage. That one will discussed later.
Arteta put Nwaneri on for the last 5 mins and nearly scored within seconds with Arsenal upping the tempo.
We got a corner and Calafiori was up for the perfect header but that keeper was there yet again.
It was looking like Arsenal have lost the chance the chance to catch Man City as the clock ticked down and they were given 7 minutes added to try and find a remedy with Leicester parking the bus. But finally, in the 4th minute of extra time, Trossard tapped the ball towards the centre and the ball luckily it came off Ndidi’s knee to get the home fans on their feet.
We put the ball in the net again through Havertz in the 98th minute that looked clearly offside, but good old VAR gave us an incredible 4-2 win in the end.
Yet again, us poor Arsenal fans were made to suffer right until the end!
ADMIN COMMENT
So here are some simple rules which I must insist commenters follow….
You agree not to give any personal abuse to other Arsenal fans. Everyone is allowed to hold their own opinions even if you disagree with them. It COSTS NOTHING TO BE POLITE TO OTHER ARSENAL FANS.
CALLING ALL ARSENAL FANS! Anyone who would like to contribute an Article or Video opinion piece on JustArsenal, please contact us through this link…
Arsenal level at the top of the pile by entering through the back door
I tell you, that Nwaneri is a star boy
I missed their equalizing goals
Is our left defence getting exposed because of Calafiori’s adventures
He really makes the left attack work
Just that there might be exploitable spaces behind him
It looked to me like we became unbalanced by sending too many people forwards left too many holes in midfield. Not really a problem on the left side specifically but may be something to do with rice and calafiori spending too much time higher up the pitch?
It was supposed to be an easy second half, but lady luck smiled upon us again
Do not agree Lady Luck smiled on Leicester most of the game, lucky deflections. Their goalkeeper was fantastic.
We were lucky when Ndidi scored an own goal in a corner situation
GOI you can’t mention our luck, that doesn’t count 🤣
@Gai Did we watch same game? imo lady luck smiled on Leciester more to not have conceeded more than two goals in the first half all thanks to their fantastic keeper.
I wasn’t surprised we wine the game our third goal was coming because the pressure was much on them. Besides, every team needs a measure of luck in a football matches.
My major positive is that Matinelli was impressive today and gradually gaining his confidence a huge boost to Arsenal.
Calafiori is a good ball carrier but needs to be careful of leaving space at the back. It would be hard for White to replace Timber.
WE paid the facture that Arteta played a full strength team against Bolton….
The fact
No he didn’t!
Did he ? No he didn’t.
Don’t know why sky sports are saying it was harsh on Leicester and Arsenal were pushed, they had two really lucky deflected goals and hardly any of the ball. Leicester were lucky and their goalkeeper kept them in it.
Exact Leicester rode their incredible luck nearly to a draw.
I can only assume it was getting back into the game and then losing out at the end.
Arsenal bias its real. Arsenal clocked the highest XG of the season creating the most big chances of the season but we were lucky.
Leicesters xg after they scored their 2 goals. Was 0.03 a freak deflection and a freak finish.
By the way never looked offside, couldn’t understand that decision.
Offside? When?
The last goal
Yeah, I’ve rewatched it now. I didn’t have audio on my stream, so thought the goal was being checked for a possible foul by Havertz. The defender & GK messed that up between themselves and kept Havertz onside.
Played onside by a Leicester player touching the ball to Haverz.
Gmv8, could be that the linesman on the far side thought it was our player that touched it to Havertz and not the Leicester defender.
Well done in the end but how on earth Arsenal let a very poor Leicester make it so smelly for us is beyond me. The win the most important but we must stop giving gifts. I thought we were more solid than what we showed second half. Was is over confidence? Or did we think we had won? Either way we must be better moving forwards. Nice little camio from Naweri. But relying on extra time winners has not to be too regular.
It’s one of those trap matches that happens every season. Remember fulham last season
we would have won the league. Even City blew a 2 goal lead vs palace.
Yes it does happen but for the 3rd time in 6 games, we have let it slip. We got this one back but by the skin of our teeth.
Unlucky deflection and a world class strike is all it was. Other than that the foxes barely had a sniff…
It doesn’t matter how, they shouldn’t have got TWO goals. They were poor.
Three huge points and no injuries I hope. Still unbeaten to boot with an easy run before Liverpool. We can only improve.
Easy run eh…..this was supposed to be easy according to some supporters but we nearly blew it. No game is easy.
The biggest take off for me is Nwaneri. That boy is bad news. I hope Arteta will manage him properly
Leicester deserved to lose, faking a foul and then trying to get California sent off for it is disgraceful, and wouldn’t even qualify for dark art. TBH I think that is far more worthy of a red card.
*Califiori damn predictive
Their first goal deflected off Havertz
VAR did not give us a 4-2 win. We earned it, while Justin helped with it.
Nervy end to an expectedly easy win after 45minutes.
On to PSG
We only won by luck. We would have dropped two points for disrespecting Leicester. Again, Arteta would have given us a third red card for failing to sub Calafiori. How many times would Arsenal hang on risks? Another point was the late introduction of Nwaneri. It means we didn’t take and lesson from our game with Bolton Wanderers on Wednesday.
Listening to Nigel Winterburn I thought he was going to have a meltdown on Arsenal.com during the added minutes
The impression he gave was that largely speaking, we were better and their goalkeeper had a world class afternoon to keep it 2-2 for so long
I don’t care how the goals go in … as long as they do. We kept up the pressure which was important. Winterburn also said the goal wasn’t offside when it took VAR ages to make a decision
We had a second half xg of close to 3 before we scored the winner – the GK effectively prevented 3 goals worth of chances, which is unusual. It was some slightly poor finishing as obviously he can only save the shots we take, but he was exceptional really.
👍
2.37
Sue, no way should Leicester have got back too 2-2. But luckily we got 2 goals in added added time.😄
Winterburn kept going on about keeping it tight during the half time break and then Leicester scored. I think we all know how shaky our nerves get so the second goal felt like a hammer blow.
The big plus is that we did come back and take the points.
I can enjoy the rest of my weekend now, Reggie
👍
The referee was handing out yellow cards for normal fouls, you do wonder at the standard of refereeing, that was for both sides.
I hate to be negative after such a good win, but was Calafiori a bit fortunate not to get second yellow card?
I believe he was
No – the Leicester guy faked the foul and threw himself to the ground. Got yellow carded for it. Ref made the right decision for once. Califiori should’ve never got the first yellow card – it was never a yellow.
Three talking points for me. Firstly,it was great seeing Martinelli get a goal. That will do his confidence some good. Secondly,Ethan Nwaneri is a baller. He played like he belongs at this stage. He looked good with the ball but I was more impressed with his eagerness to work off the ball-it shows he already understands the tactics of this team.
Finally, it showed great resilience and mentality to score in extra time and get the win. In the past,we’ve dropped points in games like this.
Yes, sometimes things go against you in the last minute(s), other times for you as we know. A draw would have been disappointing.
Ref made a balanced call. Nothing was unfair to both teams. Good play by ref tbh.
But doesn’t that shoot the corrupt PGMOL & conspiracy theorists up the arse(nal).?
Nothing will do that – they’ll always latch on to something. Best to ignore them, although I doubt they’ll go away.
Well I he was giving out yellow cards for standard fouls, fair enough he was doing it both sides, but still wrong decisions.
Yes, true but name a referee who hasn’t made bad/wrong/unnecessary decisions. They all do it and it effects all teams at one time or another. The overall standard should be better, but there it is.
It’s nothing to do with conspiracies, it’s examples of the kind of poor decisions of which we’re all (too) capable generally, let alone in football.
There are clear statistical trends for decades now. Southern teams get more cards for the same fouls than Northern teams for instance. Causation does not equal correlation but it does equal INVESTIGATION.
The ref against City we have a win record with that would put us in the relegation fight. He didn’t send of Kovacic for two yellows last year because “it would ruin the game.” He did send Trossard of for delaying the restart when trossard kick was 0.86 seconds after the whistle whilst not booking either Silva or Doku for delaying the restart earlier in the half. He also does go to country that own Man City get put up in 5* star hotels, free flights etc. getting paid 10’s of thousands but we’re the weird ones for pointing it out.
What impact did that have on today’s game?
which makes it a good time to bring up and I was responding to those above bringing it up in the 1st place. What are we doing here?
realise now you brought it up, wild take my man.
The three points were the important thing and Arsenal actually scored more than two goals in an EPL game (even one more is something), so what’s not to like.
We’ll have to see what Liverpool can do now.
A win is a win. Their keeper had a blinder, plus a deflected goal, and a strike that anyone would be proud of. My positive take away was the Nwanwei cameo, wow.
Nwaneri!
Why play a full strength team against Bolton?!!!We almost paid the price!!
In what way? Explain.
A full strength team?
5.81 v 0.58 xg is mad, just mad. Wonder how many of the usual suspects were ready to jump on the team with the draw looking likely. Freak deflection, freak finish and great saves made a non-game a game.
Nwaneri superstar in the making, people inside Arsenal have been saying it for a while. Honestly can take losing Walters, Dubbery and Obi-martin on frees because we kept Nwaneri and he was wanted by the best City, Liverpool etc.
Calafiori lucky not to get a second yellow
Thought there was a conspiracy?
different ref who doesn’t travel to UAE and get paid 10’s of thousands and we were already drawing.
Biting though the 1st was never a yellow and that 2nd one would be questionable. The issue agenda artists like you have is that week in week out they don’t make these decisions you claim are normal. The double yellow for Martinelli and Tomiyasu were 1sts and have never happened again and they could have based on that ruling. Liverpool’s Szobozlai was not sent off for a 2nd yellow booting the ball away theweek after rice.
Get back to me with examples of these decisions being normal and I’ll believe you