When Erik Lamela wound back the clock to score with a quite outrageous piece of skill and impudence, Arsenal had a familiar sinking feeling. They had dominated this derby and yet, with 33 minutes gone, they were behind. Mikel Arteta has argued, with some justification, that his team have not had the results their football has merited, at times, this season. Was this to be a hard luck story?
The answer was no. On a day when Arteta dropped his captain, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, for disciplinary reasons, believed to be related to the captain’s match-day time keeping, his players dug deep to find the needed response. They were much the better team for 70 minutes of the contest and, by then, they had the lead through Martin Ødegaard and a hotly contested Alexandre Lacazette penalty. And yet there would be late drama. There normally is with this Arsenal team.
