Arsenal thrashed Lens on midweek, and being 5-0 up at halftime meant we could rest a little in the second half, so we didn’t expect too many changes to our best line-up, and only Havertz was replaced by Trossard in midfield.
But the players must have liked overrunning Lens, as it appears they wanted to come bursting out of the box and launch a full-fledged onslaught, and the strategy worked!
Within the first ten minutes of play, there was some wonderful passing outside the box between Jesus and Saka, and our starboy jinked into the box, where Sa had no chance of stopping his close-range strike.
Just two minutes later, Zinchenko made a terrific move down the wing and after a lovely one-two with Jesus, he slid it to Odegaard on the edge of the box, and the Gunners were 2-0 up.
Arsenal, I believe, is looking for another second-half saunter. Trossard nearly made it three minutes later, but was stopped by Sa, who immediately went down hurt. Wolves chose to pull him after some on-field treatment in favor of Bentley, who is making his first EPL debut of the season.
Despite their lead, Arsenal continued to press for another goal, and Wolves had to do some tough defending. Wolves finally got the ball into the Arsenal area after half an hour of play, but the shot was blocked.
Arsenal still had a chance for a penalty, but VAR was wasting its time checking, as both Wolves and Arsenal fans voiced their displeasure with VAR! Despite 7 minutes of added time, the half finished with a 2-0 lead.
I fully anticipated Arteta to consider resting players and playing with the handbreak on to conserve energy, and to be honest, the game began to look a little scrappy, but Arsenal are not in any hurry to overexert themselves. Arteta waits until the 67th minute to replace Jesus with Nketiah, and William Saliba receives the first yellow card of the game, which is remarkable given that this is the PGMOL derby! Perhaps they are unsure of who they are.
With 15 minutes remaining, Odegaard and Saka collaborated, and Saka attempted a curler into the top corner, but it went wide, and Martinelli was replaced by Havertz. While that was going on, it appears that Tomiyasu got injured again, as he went to the ground and requested a replacement. Ben White is the obvious choice and jumps right into the pitch.
Wolves have run out of time to make a comeback, but they do try to step up and put some pressure on us, but they can’t get through our very stout defense.
Trossard was put through by a nice little dink from Odegaard, but both he and Saka couldn’t get the ball past Bentley off the rebound.
Straight down the other end, and a bad ball from Zinchenko comes up with Cunha, who curls a magnificent ball past Raya, setting up a nail-biting conclusion.
Wolves try all out for an equalizer after the restart, but Arsenal run away and Nketiah is left one-on-one with the keeper, but his fine shot is blocked by the post. We now have a game ending with 6 minutes remaining! It’s nail-biting stuff!
Arteta decides to prolong the game by substituting Saka for Jorginho and Kiwior for Odegaard as Arsenal attempts to maintain their lead.Wolves receive a handful of VAR tests, but nothing is suspicious. And we go in with a 10-man defense to hold them out until the end, and it takes a classy Raya jump for us to get a key 3 points and go 4 points clear in the table.
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