We leapt off tenth spot after a very long stay at that position on the Premier League table. This was made possible by our victory over Everton on Sunday.
The encounter which came few days after Arsenal beat Olympiacos 1-0 in the Europa League was Mikel Arteta's first game in charge against his former side since becoming our head coach. In the last one, Freddie Ljungberg's final as interim manger, he was only watching from the Director's Box.
To the team that started for us were six changes. Mesut Ozil, Dani Ceballos and Eddie Nketiah returned. It was the latter's second consecutive Premier League start. Hector Bellerin and Sead Kolasinac returned after absences via injuries though the Bosnian had to be taken off for an injury issue seventeen minutes later.
It was a piercing start for the boss as he had to watch his team concede one as early as the first minute. We have failed to deal properly with Gylfi Sigurdsson's freekick, giving Dominic Calvert-Lewin the space to steer the opener past Bernd Leno.
That goal sure did us some harm psychologically telling from the way we fared afterwards. Fortunately, we were still able to gather some balls. Eddie Nketiah gave us the equaliser having met with Bukayo Saka's cross from the left wing. It was his first home goal for Arsenal in the league.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang followed that with a second to put us ahead. The Gabonese was fed with a fine ball from David Luiz and expectedly, he tucked it into the far corner.
Our lead was truncated on the brink of the halftime whistle, no thanks to Richarlosson. Again, we would have to fight to avoid dropping points at home.
The spectators have barely settled from the break when Auba got a second to his name to take his tally in the ongoing Premier League season to seventeen. It was a header aided by a cross from Nicolas Pepe.
Leno did well as usual to keep us in the lead. The German showstopper held back Richarlosson's attempt from a promising range. Nketiah could have extended ours to 4 but the woodwork denied him
However narrow it was, a win was secured, nothing mattered more. It was a deserved result. We are beginning to get ourselves together.
Arsenal will be at home this Thursday as we welcome Olympiacos for the second leg of our Europa League round-of-32 tie. We head into that match with a 1-0 lead we earned through Alexandre Lacazette when we visited Greece last week.
0 Comments
Your comments are highly welcomed but please be informed that comments which include abusive remarks, hate speech, racial discriminatory remarks and any other form of prejudice are prohibited. Also note that comments visibility is subject to moderation so they will not show immediately.