Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction – Video
Arsenal remain top of the league after taking three hard-earned points on an extraordinary afternoon at Elland Road.
The game was barely a minute old when it was stopped. A power cut apparently caused the referee communications systems to break down, there was no link to VAR HQ, and after a bit of time on the pitch, play was suspended. Calls for the game to be refereed ‘old school’ felt fair enough when they were made, but as it transpired, we needed technology and without it we wouldn’t have won the game, in my opinion.
The first half was relatively even, with Arsenal perhaps just about good value for the lead at the break. However, from the very start – when the game got going again – Leeds threat was obvious. Sinisterra shot wide early on, a signal of intent, while Arsenal found it hard to fully click. Nevertheless, we played some lovely stuff at times. Great one touch passing, confident at the back to play it out of tight areas, just not quite as much incisiveness as you’d like in the attacking third.
Gabriel Jesus probably should have scored, chipping over the keeper but also over the bar from a tight angle, but that chance came after Leeds had hit the side netting and Aaron Ramsdale had made a smart save after the ball fell kindly for them after a corner. This was not one-way traffic by any means.
The goal came after a strange pass across field by Rodrigo, but there’s so much to like about how we made them pay for it. Saka gets there first, and look how swiftly Martin Odegaard reacts too. His pass to Saka is inch perfect, and the finish – with his right foot – is just outstanding. That’s three games in a row now where Saka has been the match winner, and on a day when we didn’t do as much as we’re capable of from an attacking perspective, that moment of genuine quality proved decisive.
Quite why we were so off the pace in the second half, I’m not sure. You have to give credit to Leeds for the way they played, and it looked as if half-time substitute Patrick Bamford had equalised within seconds of the game kicking off again. It was ruled out for a foul on Gabriel, and I have to admit I think we got a slightly generous decision there. If we’d had a goal ruled out for that up the other end, I’d be annoyed because I think it was more about the striker using his strength than an obvious foul, but thank you VAR and Paul Tierney – words I never thought I would use (and which make me feel a bit sick, but hey!).
Leeds dominated. Ramsdale made an important and painful save after a poor Saliba touch, and the home side were back in it when a penalty was awarded against the French centre-half for handball. It’s definitely a handball and definitely a penalty in that passage of play, but I don’t understand how the officials missed a clear offside in the build-up.
I’m not remotely interested in any explanation about phases of play: the bloke is offside, the flag should have gone up when he received the ball, and quite how the assistant referee on that side missed it I don’t know. He literally couldn’t be more perfectly placed, but the flag stayed down, and subsequently the cross which Saliba handled brought about the penalty. Bamford stepped up to take it … and promptly put it wide. Thank goodness, because as nerve-wracking as it was at 1-0, it would have been far worse if a goal had put even more wind in Leeds’ sails.
I was hoping that might be a wake-up call for Arsenal, but sometimes as much as you want to, you just can’t do much about the momentum of a game. Whether it was tiredness after the midweek exploits, or something else, it’s hard to say. Mikel Arteta tried changes, bringing on Fabio Vieira for Odegaard and Kieran Tierney for Ben White, but Leeds remained on top and should have turned their dominance into a goal. Ramsdale saved from Aaronson, and right at the 90 minute mark, their sub Summerville failed to hit that perfect beat and fired over the bar from inside the box after a nice move had cut us open.
Where the 6 minutes of injury time came from I’ll never know, but a couple of minutes in there was drama. Gabriel appeared to kick out at Bamford in the box, he went down shrieking like a baby, the referee consulted his assistant – the same one who somehow didn’t see the obvious offside – awarded Leeds another penalty and gave Gabriel a red card.
But, the twist in the tale is that Bamford had very obviously fouled Gabriel first, and while he needs to be told not to react the way he did in situations like that, the fact he was fouled before that is the key part of this scenario. VAR told the ref to go look at the screen, he took a bit too long for my liking, but in the end overturned the red card and the penalty, but somehow still gave Gabriel a yellow, which was a bit weird. As for Bamford, that was pure Ruud van Nistelrooy – funnily enough in the week when we face his PSV side. Gabriel made no contact, Bamford went down as if he’d been brutalised and frankly it makes him look like a right wanker.
Without VAR and Bamford’s penalty miss, we’d be talking about a couple of egregious officiating errors this morning. The game continued until the 99th minute, the ref was pulling time out of his arse, but finally, eventually, thankfully, he blew the final whistle and all three points were ours. Did we fully deserve them? Probably not, but as William Munny told Little Bill in Unforgiven, “Deserves got nothing to do with it.”
In the watching of a game like this, you tend to focus on what you lacked and what you didn’t do well, and from an Arsenal point of view that was obvious. We didn’t control possession at all in the second half, we barely created any chances, and were unable to halt the Leeds dominance. Still, it meant we had to defend, and while Leeds inevitably had some chances, I thought we defended with real intent. We knew the game wasn’t going our way, so it was backs to wall, holding on with Holding on and all that, and sometimes that’s just what you have to do to win a game.
The focus on Gabriel post-game for the Bamford incident took away from him getting the requisite plaudits for what I thought was a very good performance at centre-half. I love Saliba as much as anyone else, but he was the shakier of the two yesterday, and the big Brazilian defended with real heart. He made more clearances than anyone else, blocked four shots too, and one of them – during the second half – was crucial to keeping us ahead. There’s a bit more discussion of him on the new Arsecast Extra, but for me he deserved credit for what he did in the 99 minutes, not criticism for the split-second where the focus should be on Bamford’s cheating in my opinion.
Afterwards, Mikel Arteta said:
We left the game open and from the beginning – from the first whistle in the second half we started not at the rhythm, not making the right decisions time after time. We put ourselves in big trouble. But then when you get into those moments, I love the resilience, the fight the character and the courage the team showed to win the game.
To go from Thursday night in Norway and then come to Leeds and win both games the way we have done – big credit to the boys. It shows a lot about the team.
Sometimes you’ve got to win ugly, and usually that comes with a slice of luck too. We had a bit of that yesterday, but from this one the players will likely take more than fans. Confidence and momentum are interlinked, driven primarily by results, so knowing you can still win when playing poorly is useful. It’s not an excuse for the performance level, but it also has an impact on how you’re perceived as opposition too. Teams know they can play well and still not win. It’s all in the mix.
Afterwards, Liverpool beating Man City ensured that it was happy Invincibles Day, as every team in the league has now lost a game. Having sat through 10 minutes of injury time during our game, I wasn’t expecting to get as drawn into the game at Anfield as I was, so all in all it was a good but somewhat exhausting day to be an Arsenal fan. It’s easier to rest at the top of the table though.
Right, let’s leave it there. Andrew Allen and I recorded the Arsecast Extra for you last night as James is away on holidays. All the links you need to listen/subscribe are below. Enjoy!
