At the end of an afternoon of twists and turns, Arsenal regained first place in the English championship from Manchester City, the defending champion. The Gunners won in the last minutes on the lawn of Aston Villa (4-2), while City was trapped by Nottingham Forest (1-1).
Places are expensive at the top of the Premier League. Stripped of first place in the English championship after their defeat in the shock against Manchester City (1-3) on February 15, Arsenal was already no longer entitled to error in the title race. The Gunners faced Aston Villa, this Saturday, February 18 at the start of the 24th day of the championship, and had to restart if they did not want to be left behind by their direct competitor.
Victory was slow in coming for Arsenal, who remained on a four-game winless streak in all competitions and suffered for more than 90 minutes on the pitch at Villa Park against a gripping Villans. Feverish in defense, Mikel Arteta’s players were quickly led to the score from the start following a goal from Ollie Watkins (5e, 1-0), who eliminated French defender William Saliba before crossing his shot well to deceive the goalkeeper. Arsenal equalized a few minutes later, following a superb left-footed volley from Bukayo Saka (16e1-1).
Dominating but not sharp enough, the Gunners were once again taken over by Aston Villa after a collective action very well concluded by Philippe Coutinho (32e, 2-1). In full doubt at the break, Arsenal came back up to Villa thanks to a corner well taken by Zinchenko (61e, 2-2). And while the two teams were heading straight for a draw, Arsenal overturned the match in the dying seconds, well helped by Emiliano Martínez, the Aston Villa goalkeeper, author of an unfortunate own goal (93e, 2-3) after a big shot from Jorginho on the crossbar. The Gunners worsened the score in stride thanks to a counter-attack in the last seconds, which allowed Gabriel Martinelli to score in the empty net (98e2-4).
With this snatch victory, Arsenal has revived perfectly and has shown that it is not ready to let Manchester City fly alone at the top of the championship.
City stumble against Nottingham
Manchester City could hope to quickly regain the reins of the Premier League, briefly confiscated by Arsenal thanks to their victory against Aston Villa (4-2) earlier in the afternoon, winning away against NottinghamForest. But what promised to be an affordable meeting against 14th in the standings finally turned into a trap match for Pep Guardiola’s players.
In control in the game as usual, City put pressure on an opposing defense applied without succeeding in quickly concretizing their domination. Rodri could have opened the scoring with a header following a fine serve from Kevin De Bruyne (33e), but he saw the ball fly just past the goal. It was not until the end of the first period that City finally found the fault with its only shot on target, thanks to a cannon shot under the bar signed Bernardo Silva (41e0-1).
Upon returning from the locker room, the Citizens clearly showed their intention to push their opponents. But Guardiola’s players lacked attacking realism despite a multitude of chances from Gundogan (47e), Foden (48e), Laporte (52e) or even De Bruyne (58e). Even Erling Haaland, the Premier League’s top scorer this season with 26 goals and Manchester City’s number one attacking asset, completely missed out on Navas’ goal (67e). Faced with these attacks, we logically expected that Nottingham Forest would eventually crack. But the Reds took advantage of a weak time from the Citizens to equalize against the run of play following a good action concluded by Chris Wood (84e1-1) at the very end of the game.
Arsenal therefore regains the advantage over Manchester City – 54 points to 52 with one match less – and reassures itself during this 24e day that smiled at him. Still in ambush, City will leave little room for error as Arsenal hope to win their first Premier League title since the 2003-2004 season.