Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction – Video
I don’t necessarily subscribe to the idea that some things are just meant to be, but after yesterday’s 2-0 win over Everton, it’s hard to escape the sense that a particular confluence of events can lead to extraordinary outcomes.
There were moments in the first half when the trajectory of this game could have taken us in a different direction. If Riccardo Calafiori doesn’t pull of the incredible block to deny Dwight McNeil a certain goal we don’t end up where we did. If McNeil’s shot that cannons off the post with Raya beaten then rebounds off Iliman Ndiaye and goes just inside the post rather than just wide of it (and he was onside, by the way!), we don’t get to experience that glorious late elation.
For a long time yesterday, I felt very strongly that the failure to award a penalty for what was an obvious foul on Kai Havertz was going to be one of those moments in the season that we might speak of as a seismic ‘What if?’. It looked as if we were going to drop points, this would be an obvious injustice, and one where if things didn’t play out with us ending up as champions, we’d look back on and bemoan the fact the universe just doesn’t want us to have nice things.
But in the end, the fact the VAR somehow looked at that foul, which should have been a penalty and potentially a red card for Michael Keane, and decided it wasn’t what everyone else in the world believed it to be (even Everton fans I bet), brought us to where we ended up. For me that decision was inexplicable, but maybe the fates had other ideas for how this game was going to end up.
It’s the 74th minute. Arsenal have had 19 shots but never really worked Jordan Pickford too hard in the Everton goal. Just seconds before, Cristhian Mosquera headed an Everton free kick just wide of his own net. It’s fair to say the visitors, on balance, have had the better chances. Having already replaced Kai Havertz and Noni Madueke with Viktor Gyokeres and Gabriel Martinelli, Mikel Arteta has one more attacking ace up his sleeve. He can choose between a Brazilian international who has been there and done that in a Premier League title winning team, or a young man who turned 16 on December 31st.
He says his gut feeling told him to go with Max Dowman, who replaced Martin Zubimendi. He went out wide, Bukayo Saka moved inside, and Arsenal continued their hunt for a goal which felt like it would never come. Eberechi Eze had a shot well saved, there was chance for Dowman after nice build-up play, but he leaned back and put his shot over the bar. The clock was ticking.
It’s the 89th minute. David Raya, who had made a couple of very important saves, stood outside our box with the ball at his feet. It felt like he had it there for hours. I don’t often shout at my TV, but I did this time. ‘USE IT!’, I bellowed pointlessly because nobody could hear me. Eventually, some decades later, he and Gabriel trade risky passes as Everton press, before the big centre-half plays what is an excellent ball across the pitch to Mosquera.
We go forward, get a throw, Everton switch off for a second, Dowman delivers a wicked cross towards the back post, Pickford comes and gets the slightest touch but not enough as the ball drops, hits Piero Hincapie in the mickey, and rebounds perfectly for Gyokeres to score the easiest finish off his life. The Swede had barely had a kick since coming on, but he was in the right place at the right time, just what you want from your striker. 1-0, and surely that would be enough for this Arsenal team to grind out another win.
I often say football is mad, and the reason I say that is because it is. I don’t lie to you. 6 minutes of added time. Arsenal control most of that time until we don’t. Hincapie makes a great tackle, then a long throw ends up as an Everton corner. We’re over the 6 minutes. My heartbeat is doing techno BPMs. It’s an opportunity for the universe to say ‘Haha, you thought I was on your side, but watch this!’. I am fully expecting late horror. Instead, we get what could end up being one of the great Arsenal moments in this stadium.
Everton deliver, Gyokeres makes a very important defensive header at the near post. Martinelli heads it forward as Pickford, who had gone up to try and help his team find an equaliser, thinks about challenging but then pulls out. Dowman nods the bouncing ball beyond Mylolenko who looks like he tries to rugby tackle him, but perhaps some sense of inherent fairness prevents him from doing it with conviction. He then skips inside Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall who, beaten by the quick feet, falls on his back Platoon style because he knows what’s coming.
Dowman pushes the ball forward into the empty Everton half, Martinelli keeps pace then acts as a blocker as a defender tries to get back, before the 16 year old becomes Arsenal’s youngest ever goalscorer, and the youngest player to ever score in the Premier League, making it 2-0 and ensuring the points are safe. It was, by any measure, extraordinary. Not 10 minutes before, I felt like I was on the floor with the prospect of dropped points looming. Now I’m on the nightclub floor, as if I were back in the 90s, with Mr Mitsubishi doing his job and I’m dancing, and loving everyone and everything.
How can this be? How have I committed so much of my life to this thing I have zero control over that can do that to me? It’s because football is a really special thing. It can hurt you like few other things can, but when it gives you something like this, all those scars, those many, varied scars, just disappear for a while and are replaced by something almost indescribable (he says doing his best to describe it).
And it’s just so incredibly random. If any of those other incidents I mentioned had gone even slightly differently, we don’t get this. I think I’d have been very happy if we score a penalty against 10 man Everton then go on to a more prosaic 2-0 win and take all three points, but this is what we got, and it was glorious. And if you want to talk about moments in a season that feel like things are going your way, you cannot look at this and not think it’s exactly that.
With Man City playing after us, how much pressure did that exert on them? They’d have been looking at Arsenal 0-0 in the 89th minute and praying Everton held on. A few minutes later, they’re looking at a very different scoreline before they take the field against a West Ham side who end up taking a point from them via a headed goal by former Gunner Dinos Mavropanos, as they miss chance after chance to win it. Hello universe, my old friend.
I am a bit all over the place in terms of a coherent narrative this morning, so forgive me, but I want to go back to Dowman for a second here. There is always a tendency when a player does something to over-index it in our joy and exultation, but I’ve always said the best players make difficult things look simple. What he did in terms of reading the game, winning that bouncing ball, controlling it like it was stuck to his foot, beating two experienced Premier League players, then carrying it 70 yards up the pitch and rolling it into the goal was not easy, but he made it look like child’s play (pun on slightly intended).
There were 60,000 people screaming with excitement and anticipation, millions watching all over the world, and he did it like he was playing in the park with his mates. Watch his senior teammates react as he goes forward, they’re smiling and laughing because they know he’s going to score. They have full faith in him. The moment was incredible, and should live long in the minds of Arsenal fans, but make no mistake, he produced something very special in pure footballing terms and to do it at 16 is nothing short of remarkable. Mikel Arteta said afterwards it was ‘not normal’, and we probably have to be careful not to set the expectations around Dowman too high, but this morning it’s something to be replayed again and again, and cherished for how it made us all feel.
The celebrations were brilliant. Arteta, who had pointedly been a continuously positive presence on the sideline even as his team struggled, punched the air as the Arsenal players, subs, youth players, staff members, and more, piled on to celebrate with Dowman who booted the corner flag as he ran to the crowd. You couldn’t help but think of the Reiss Nelson goal against Bournemouth, but this felt different, more decisive in the title race given the way the table ended up at the end of yesterday.
Asked what this would mean for the mood in the camp, Arteta said:
I think it’s been incredible the last couple months. It’s been sensational. We are in every competition and we are competing in every single game like it’s the last one. Some days we’ll be better, some other times exceptional, some other times not that good. But that relentless desire to win that I feel in the team is just one of the best things that, in my opinion, this team has.
And on Dowman:
You just have to see him train every single day honestly; some of the things that he does, he does it against these defenders that are some of the best in the world. So he can do it against anybody else and the doubt is always that he’s 16 and the crowd and the pressure and expectations but it doesn’t seem to be fazing him very much, and he had an incredible moment for all of us.
I feel like I could keep writing and keep writing this morning, and I hope I haven’t missed anything. When something like this happens, the splurge of stuff that goes with it, video clips galore etc, feels almost overwhelming at times. But the essence of it is that this was a pivotal day in the title race. We ran the full gamut of emotion from one side of the spectrum to the other, but ended up in the right place in an unforgettable way. I think I have to go and watch it all again, and again, and maybe again, but that’s not a chore by any means.
I don’t want to get ahead of myself, because there’s still work to do and we don’t play in the Premier League again until April 11th which seems insane rally, but there are wins and there are wins, and this was a win! You know what I mean. Please join myself and James tomorrow for an Arsecast Extra when we’ll do our best to re-live this in a very enjoyable way. Is there any other way? For now, take it easy folks, have a great Sunday.
I think my heart-rate is just about normal again. Until I get stuck into those replays. ❤️
