As Arsenal and Manchester City have booked their place in this season’s Carabao Cup final, their respective league fixtures for that weekend had to be rescheduled. Pep Guardiola’s men required to play Crystal Palace but unable to do so this week due to the Eagles’ European commitments.
A double booking which gave Arsenal the opportunity to go seven points clear at the top of the Premier League as they travelled to Wolves on Wednesday night – an opportunity that they failed to take full advantage of.
Not something that looked like being the case when Bukayo Saka opened the scoring in just the fifth minute of the game. The Arsenal forward already celebrating the signature of a new five-year contract earlier in the week, he and his teammates celebrating at Molineux early on.
Setting the pace
1-0 to the Arsenal is the famous chant that supporters used to sing at the club’s old Highbury ground, it is something that has come back into fashion under the tutelage of Mikel Arteta and although his charges did have chances to double their lead, they were only a goal to the good at the interval.
Not that a lead by the barest of margins mattered all that much and it certainly did not matter by the time Piero Hincapie made it 2-0 to the visitors. The former Bayer Leverkusen defender finding himself in an advanced position and his effort within the Wolves’ box was rewarded with a goal.
The league leaders on top on the night but this is where they should have acted as champions elect. Going for the jugular and recording a three or even four goal win in the West Midlands, goal difference could be hugely important on the final day – just as important as points themselves.
Stick or twist
Arsenal dialling down the intensity, Wolves with nothing to lose. You could sense something in the air and it was not just the swirling winds within the stadium, at this stage Rob Edwards’ men felt they could still get themselves back in the game.
A feeling that was proved correct when Hugo Bueno halved the deficit on the night. The Gunners feeling the strain after being hit by waves of constant Wolves’ pressure, that pressure leaving David Raya to pick the ball out of the net after a curling effort sailed over his head.
Only one team in the ascendency now and with the game dropping deep into the territory where the winning team looks to kill the clock, that is precisely what Mikel Arteta set out to do. Leandro Trossard only on the field of play for 20 minutes, the sub then substituted in injury time.
His replacement Ricardo Calafiori perhaps now wishing he had never entered the field of play. No sooner had the Italian replaced his Belgian counterpart was he then the last player to touch the ball before Wolves’ leveller.
Tom Edozie's 94th-minute effort deflecting in off the former Bologna defender to give the hosts a share of the points. Arsenal subsequently dropping two of them – an outcome celebrated just as much at Molineux than within in the blue half of Manchester.
