A torrid week ends with Arsenal top of the table. There are worse places to be and they could be four points ahead of Manchester City before the champions play again. If the eventual verdict is that the last seven days costs Arsenal the Premier League as well as the Champions League, none of the damage was done at Molineux.
The footballing cliché is that it is the sort of win champions secure, an away win that was ground out in forgettable fashion; the likelier scenario may be that they end up as runners-up again. Yet if a response was required after the defeats to Aston Villa and Bayern Munich, Mikel Arteta got one: not so much in the quality of the performance but in the way Arsenal showed the resolve to avert suggestions their season is in meltdown.
Amid talk of a summer overhaul that may be needed to take them to another level, they received another reminder of the enduring merit of Leandro Trossard. Pound for pound, the Belgian is a contender to be the best buy of Arteta’s reign and while his opener was fortunate, it may yet have an added value. After a flood of goals had given way to a drought, Trossard delivered Arsenal’s first in 239 minutes of football. It was unstoppable if unconvincing in its execution. Martin Odegaard’s altogether smoother finish in the 95th minute secured victory.
Trossard struck just before half-time as his shot found the top corner (Reuters)
Yet Trossard, not the captain, is Arsenal’s second top scorer, his 14th of the campaign putting him behind only Bukayo Saka and if the never-ending debate is whether they require a poacher centre-forward, the Belgian has shown a squad player has an ability to prove prolific in a variety of roles. For Arteta, whose selection choices against Villa left him open to criticism, there was the sense he rolled the dice better against another side from the Midlands. He made three changes and two of those introduced – Gabriel Jesus and Trossard – combined for the first goal.
It came in a game when Arsenal were not at their most decisive or incisive but it proved a fine time to face Wolves. The watching Gunners supporter Sir Keir Starmer might take a forgettable win against depleted opponents in his day job.
With another pragmatic figure, Declan Rice, dominating, it was a triumph of Arsenal’s solidity. This was their sixth consecutive away clean sheet, when the major alarm came courtesy of an error by Jakub Kiwior. When the floundering Pole was overpowered by Joao Gomes, he was rescued by David Raya, who tipped the Brazilian’s shot onto the post.
Raya tipped Gomes’s shot onto the post with the game goalless (Action Images via Reuters)
It helped, though, that Wolves, who have often prospered against the best this season, had a makeshift look. Their injury list included Pedro Neto and Matheus Cunha, while Rayan Ait-Nouri, Mario Lemina and Pablo Sarabia were only deemed fit enough to start on the bench and Hee-Chan Hwang never slated to finish the game. It deprived Wolves of most of their scorers. Yet they had a resourcefulness. Gary O’Neil’s fluid formation, with a concentration of players in the middle of the pitch, presented problems for Arsenal. Boubacar Traore was a formidable obstacle in the midfield, Hugo Bueno an eager raider on the left.
But Wolves’ limited attacking options – the 20-year-old Tawanda Chiwera made his maiden start for the club – rendered the first goal more important and Arsenal scored it. Wolves then struggled to mount a response until O’Neil summoned his three senior substitutes. The other six consisted of a reserve goalkeeper and five teenagers; the manager had quipped Wolves had to take 15-year-old Wes Okoduwa out of science class. Basic maths shows Wolves’ recent haul now stands at two points from five games; notions of a venture into Europe have come to look fanciful.
Odegaard sealed victory in stoppage time (Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Arsenal’s determination to show more intent than they had at the Allianz Arena was signalled when Kai Havertz and Jesus could have both scored in the first four minutes. With Jorginho omitted, Rice anchored the midfield but twice made late runs into the box to shoot.
With the Englishman in a deeper role and Havertz back in the midfield, Jesus started and played his part in the breakthrough. He controlled the ball, held off Matt Doherty and teed up Trossard whose outside-of-the-boot shot – somehow both sliced and precise – veered in off the far post. The Belgian had missed his kick with his previous chance; a second imperfect effort had a rather better ending.
The game had a fine finish for Arsenal, an increasingly rampant Rice leading the charge, Havertz finding Odegaard, who scored at the second attempt. And if troubled Aprils have been something of a theme of Arteta’s reign, they will finish the month with a north London derby, potentially still at the summit. Then the question will be if they can end May there, too.
