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Lucky Arsenal stumble in title race as Brentford could have made it worse
Brentford 1-1 Arsenal
When the irrepressible Brentford striker Igor Thiago broke through in the second minute of time added on and lined up the half-volley, the thought may well have occurred to Mikel Arteta that this would be a very good point after all.
That would have been the winner for Brentford in a period of the game when one might have expected the Premier League leaders to be laying siege to them. There would be no goal for Thiago, a little wild with his strike, and there would be one more chance for Arsenal – but even still. In a period of the season when it feels like Arsenal cannot afford to drop a single point, here was a single point that did not feel entirely like a disappointment.
So the title race swings irresistibly again, from a time on Sunday afternoon when Manchester City were ready to declare themselves out of it, to a Thursday evening when Arsenal found themselves reeled back in.
Just four points now separates Arteta’s leaders and the rest of an erratic pack led by City. This never felt like it would be an Arsenal win from the start, even when Noni Madueke finally scored after the hour in a game that took a long time to catch light. Yet when at last it did, Brentford were superb in their intensity and in taking their set-piece and long-throw game to the masters of the set-piece and long-throw.
The equaliser was a classic from the Brentford playbook – the Michael Kayode throw-in bomb. “You have to pray,” Arteta would later admit about defending the Brentford right-back’s big throw. “They are exceptional at what they do,” Arteta said of the evening’s opposition. “The chaos around that ball into the area is very hard to defend.
“We said to the players that if you want to win here you have to defend the box with your life. If you don’t do that it’s very difficult to win the game and we haven’t done that.”
That goal had come from Keane Lewis-Potter, unexpectedly granted a second header at the back post having missed one earlier in the second half. Or perhaps there was nothing really unexpected about the fact that Brentford would pepper Arsenal with set-pieces and the long throw-in-of-doom at every opportunity.
Brentford are a team in a rich vein of form, returning to play in west London after wins at Villa Park and then at Newcastle United. Keith Andrews’ side did not have Jordan Henderson or their Danish playmaker Mikkel Damsgaard in the starting XI and both were waiting to come on when at last Lewis-Potter scored the equaliser.
“I always want us to cause chaos here,” Andrews said later, “and I want us to play in a relentless fashion.” As others outside the elite have fallen away this season, so Brentford have risen in spite of another summer of sales and the departure of Thomas Frank. It is hard to keep that momentum and yet Andrews has sustained it to the point now, with 12 games to play, a place in Uefa competition next season is a realistic prospect.
There was a moment after the Thiago chance in time added on at the end of the game when Caoimhin Kelleher was called upon to make a fine save from the substitute Gabriel Martinelli. But every one of this Brentford side appeared energised by a second half performance in which they never looked overawed.
“We played with a real determination to get the three points,” Andrews said. “In the latter stages we looked more likely to do that than them.”
There was an acceptance of that from the Arsenal players, at the end of a game that had only really come alive in the last 30 minutes. Arteta’s players had not had an attempt on goal in the first half. David Raya had made an excellent save from Thiago on 27 minutes. Otherwise there had been very little cutting edge from Arteta’s side by that point. He responded by substituting Eberechi Eze at half-time.
It will be a worrying development for the Arsenal man, who struggled to have any impact at such a critical stage of the season. William Saliba was missing on this occasion with illness and is expected to be available for next week’s Premier League visit to Wolverhampton Wanderers.
There was an early booking for Andrews as his first half protests against the decisions of referee John Brooks grew ever louder. Soon after Brooks did book the Arsenal defender Gabriel Magalhães for a foul on Thiago and there was a strong case that Gabriel might have got a second yellow in the 82nd minute. Andrews certainly thought so afterwards, and a dismissal then, with almost 15 minutes to play could have been decisive.
With Martin Odegaard on for Eze, Arsenal were much better after the break. A period of pressure meant that Brentford gave up possession and Piero Hincapié hit an out-swinging cross from the left. It was by no means a simple chance for Madueke but he contrived to hang high enough and long enough to get a good contact on the ball. Kelleher was unable to change his momentum.
Arsenal might have scored again when Declan Rice tried to divert the ball into the path of Viktor Gyokeres on 67 minutes on a quick attack – perhaps one pass too many. Brentford kept coming. Another Kayode throw, the first contact made by Sepp van den Berg and then Lewis-Potter arrived at the back post to score this time.
Van den Berg and Kristoffer Ajer had been dominant in defence for Brentford. There was also a very fine recovery tackle on Thiago from Cristhian Mosquera, in for Saliba, as the two teams traded attacks in the closing stages. Arsenal threw everything at it, but by the end it felt like this might have been a good result. They could so easily have lost.
[Source: Daily Telegraph]
