Lucas Torreira flies through the night air to bring Arsenal’s frustrating afternoon to a satisfactory close
Arsenal 1-0 Huddersfield Town: With just seven minutes of the match remaining Torreira’s scored a spectacular aerial volley to deny Huddersfield a hard-earned point
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Your support makes all the difference.The only thing missing was the cape. Through the cold north London air Lucas Torreira came flying: his body spinning through almost a full rotation, a super-bright yellow boot swinging through the ball to save Arsenal in the nick of time.
Seven minutes from time, to be precise: Torreira’s spectacular aerial volley securing all three points and bringing a febrile, frustrating afternoon to a satisfactory close. Thwarted again and again by the officials, by a magnificent Huddersfield rearguard, by their own carelessness on the ball, Arsenal’s late show salvaged what had been a pretty ordinary performance, characterised by another turgidly slow opening. They should start selling second-half-only tickets at the Emirates. They’d disappear in an instant.
And so Arsenal’s unbeaten run stretches to 21 games in all competitions, with a clean sheet to boot. Questions remain for Unai Emery: were five defenders and three defensive-ish midfielders really necessary against the Premier League’s lowest scorers? The fact that he again rang the changes at half-time suggested probably not.
Huddersfield, for their part, looked utterly distraught at full-time. Grimly they picked themselves off the turf and went over to applaud their travelling fans, having come so close to a precious point. Their effort was faultless, their defensive positioning very good, their 5-4-1 formation cleverly assembled to restrict Arsenal’s delivery from wide. Alex Pritchard and Jonas Lossl in goal were particularly good, but really their strength has always been as a collective: fighting for each other, pumping up the intensity and turning what should have been a crisp afternoon stroll for Arsenal into a high-pitched battle.
It was an ill-tempered game, and one that occasionally threatened to boil over. Nine yellow cards were shown in total, six of them coming in a particularly febrile 10-minute period just before half-time, when referee Paul Tierney temporarily lost control of the game and Sokratis and Danny Williams, in particular, could easily have seen red for dangerously high tackles.
That wasn’t the only reason Arsenal were ticking. In the midst of all this, they were denied a perfectly good goal by Alexandre Lacazette which would have given them a half-time lead for the first time this campaign. Lacazette was marginally offside as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang flicked on a goal kick, but returned back onside as Mathias Jorgensen controlled the ball and knocked it back to his keeper. Only - Jorgensen’s pass was a shocker. Lacazette ran onto it and slotted the ball past Jonas Lossl, only to throw his arms skyward in frustration as assistant Simon Beck’s flag went up.
It was a poor decision. Lacazette hadn’t been interfering with play, and under Law 11 hadn’t gained an advantage from being offside.
Still, it shouldn’t really have mattered. By that point Arsenal had already missed two wonderful chances, one for Aubameyang at the near post and one for Lacazette 12 yards out, slipping over just as he was about to pull the trigger. And so as Arsenal once again shuffled down the tunnel to a plainchant of frustrated boos - remarkably, they haven’t led at half-time all season - Emery turned once more to his bench.
Off came the sketchy Lacazette and the superfluous Stephan Lichtsteiner; on came Alex Iwobi and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, yet neither really had the desired impact. Iwobi, in particular, was poor: his touch a little heavy, his decision-making some way from his best. As the minutes ticked by, the Emirates began to seethe in all sorts of unexpected ways. As Tommy Smith - already booked - was warned by Tierney for taking his time over a throw, an outraged fan in the West Stand got to his feet, brandishing his red Santander credit card in the hope of spurring Tierney into action.
Perhaps, after their immense efforts of the past week, Arsenal looked a little weary. Aubameyang seemed to lack sharpness. Hector Bellerin faded after a bright start. Mkhitaryan struggled to get into the game. It was fitting, then, that when Arsenal finally broke the deadlock it was as a result of their two best players combining. Matteo Guendouzi’s clipped diagonal ball was brought down by Aubameyang, and after a messy scramble he shielded the ball from Terence Kongolo and floated it over.
Torreira, six yards out, was unmarked, but the ball was marginally behind him. For a player in this sort of form, though, that was but a minor inconvenience. His bright yellow boot smashed through the ball, and as the net rippled, the Emirates rose in a mixture of elation and relief. One-nil to the Arsenal, just like the old times: an embarrassment averted, but the Emery bandwagon still very much rolling.
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