Laurent Koscielny scored in the 92nd minute as Arsenal snatched a last-gasp 1-0 win at Burnley. The Gunners had endured a frustrating afternoon at Turf Moor until the Frenchman, along with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, bundled home a corner at the far post following Theo Walcott’s flick on.
The win, our fifth in the Premier League on the trot, ensures Arsene Wenger starts his 21st year in charge of the club on a positive note and takes the Gunners up to third in the table just two points behind leaders Manchester City.
First half
Having feasted on quick, decisive, goal-laden first half football in recent weeks the opening 45 minutes at Turf Moor came as something of a shock. Interminably dull is probably the best description.
Happy to let Arsenal have possession, Burnley sat deep packing all eleven men within the width of the penalty area. The onus was on Arsenal to unpick the lock and we didn’t try very hard. Alexis and Walcott both had efforts on goal in the opening 15 minutes, the latter flashing past Tom Heaton’s post, but that aside we seemed content knocking the ball around without no urgency whatsoever. The attacking unit to a man was sloppy on the ball.
At the back, Laurent Koscielny made a couple of hearty blocks on the edge of the area and Shkodran Mustafi seemed to enjoy his physical battle with Sam Vokes. On the one occasion the striker gave the German the slip he headed Lowton’s cross wide. It was something of a let-off given he was totally unmarked and only eight yards out.
Second half
Arsenal started the second half with more zip, Alexis forcing Heaton into a decent stop at his near post after the ball broke loose in the box following determined work by Hector Bellerin.
Amidst the growing frustration, Alex Iwobi offered a moment of hilarity as he shanked an effort out for a throw having tried to Thierry a curler into the top corner.
As the game reached the hour mark, the home side grew in confidence. Petr Cech, who in the first half would have been forgiven for having a nap, produced a fine save to claw away Johan Gumundsen’s header. Theo Walcott did well to hack the resulting corner away after a brief scramble in the box.
There was further goalmouth action for both sides as the game driped into the final twenty minutes. Alexis clipped the outside of the post after hammering a low volley as the ball dropped out of the sky. The connection was sweet, the direction sour. At the other end Michael Keane connected with a corner only for his header to crash off the bar. Rare moments of excitement between lengthy passages of Arsenal keep ball.
Theo Walcott might have won it for the Gunners with five minutes remaining but his curled effort just went wide. The game looked done and dusted as the match ticked over the two minutes of allotted time before we mustered one final chance and stole the points.
Ozil passed a short corner to Sanchez whose cross was met by Theo Walcott six yards out. The England international’s header glanced to the far post where Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain took a swipe at the ball, his connection appeared to hit Laurent Koscielny’s arm and in it went. The home side screamed at the referee but the goal was given and the Arsenal players went ballistic.
The sight of substitutes Gabriel, Kieran Gibbs and The Jeff joining in was just delightful, as was the reaction of the boss who couldn’t quite believe his side had snatched a goal. (Watch the goal)
Starting XI: Cech, Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Monreal, Xhaka, Cazorla, Ozil, Iwobi, Walcott, Alexis
Subs: Ospina, Gibbs, Gabriel, Holding, The Jeff, Elneny, Oxlade-Chamberlain
Never. In. Dou….. *dies from heart attack*
Do you need a hand?
Burnley did well, but were not prepared for the masterstroke from Wenger. They didn’t know that Wenger will throw on the OX who is bide his time till the last kick of the game, before kicking the ball into Kos’ face, which will then deflect into the goal, bamboozling everyone.
If that is not tactical genius, I don’t know what is.
He meant to do that
Now that I think about the goal, given that both the face and hand were involved, that goal was perhaps the ultimate FACEPALM goal.
Burnley are good at home, they lost 1-0 to Swansea on this season’s opening day, that is their only home defeat in the last 17 League games.
Before today!
what a beautiful goal
Hand of God – part deux
Team of men…
Hand of Kos
It came at such a handy time
I think you won the comments section
Better team won today. Nice way to head into the break.
Only one team showed up to play football. I imagine some nobber in Burnley is gutted but honestly, that form of football should not ever be rewarded. They defended well for 92 and a half minutes and the right team won, result.
That form of football needs to be rewarded against every other team that plays there.
Hehe – can’t argue with that!
I was impressed with Burnley. Sometimes you come up against a team that, despite having a serious talent shortage, are able to play football in a way that makes sense for them. Portugal this summer, for instance. I’m impressed with Dyche, and his team created good chances today despite having practically none of the ball. They passed the ball reasonably well when they got it and until the goal went in I didn’t see how they were going to concede. Burnley would definitely have deserved a point had they gotten it. But they didn’t, and we got all three of… Read more »
To be fair it’s Burnley mate. They lived within their means, though I was a goal away from being VERY frustrated given how other results went. Now when Chelsea play like that with their millions, then I fucking have a problem.
….Yeah, unlike the other team who played their “best game of the season” and still drew..
Now let’s all pray sp*rs end up where they are now!
can’t understand how any arsenal fan can thumb this down?….has to be a mole!
Sometimes when we read Arseblog on our phones, the thumbs down button is hit by mistake, and then we have a moment of feeling pissed that we just down voted such a good post even though not on purpose
Sincerely
Mobile Users
Lots of trolls read arseblog unfortunately.
Tremendous goal to celebrate 20 years of beautiful football
0-0 is the worst score in footba….
KOSCIELNY!!!!!!!
Walcott makes a decisive contribution yet again !
It was an (unintentional) assist from The Ox after (another) miss
Yeah I have to say that was a poor hit, if Kos was not in front of him it would have gone over
Absolutely no way that Ox effort was on target. But who cares.
A massive three points from a hugely uninspiring match. Stuff of champions.
“Hands down” our sweetest goal so far this season!
You mean hands up ^^
It’s hard to be inspiring when Vokes was playing defensive mid and every other of his teammates are bloody defenders.
Got to hand it Kos for scoring that late
A handy winner indeed.
Nothing like a late goal to give you that adrenaline rush and yell the house down! Get in lads!!
Always scare the wife when it happens.Massive three points.
Kos the hand? Instead of hand of Kos
The hand of Dennis
He used ‘The Force’ all the way from his home in Amsterdam.
Kos that hand that scores for Arsenal
Probably the ugliest goal ever, but who cares? Its 3 points!
And offside too! Don’t care, three points!
Koscielny with another crucial goal. I fucking love the man
Dare I say it … stuff champions are made off!!!
Lets hope so
Anyone else ever notice that whenever kos scores it’s really fucking important and he literally always gets injured in the process
Yep!…every time. he really is rising to the responsibility of being the captain
I love him. On a different note I thought Mesut was very poor today. Worth noting that he hasn’t exactly been himself yet this season.
He was pretty shit today, but he’s been alright this season, without reaching the insane heights of last. Was amazing against Chelsea, though.
Also very good against Basel (despite missing a couple of good chances) and against Watford.
He’s got that Sergio Ramos thing going in terms of important goals. But without the being a massive dickface bit.
Never in doubt.
Breathtaking! Almost the last kick of the game. Hope this goal will give Ox more confidence. COYG
My bad. To Kos!
That was truly awful to watch. Right result in the end though 🙂
Exactly what we needed. A little wake up call to keep us on our toes while still getting 3 points.
Phew!
Get in!!!! Easy to sound wise after the event, but there was a visible difference in how we played that made me not lose hope right to the whistle. We played with pace and purpose and there always looked like there was a chance, not like in recent seasons when you just knew it wasn’t going to happen. Onwards and upwards!!
Totally this. There weren’t any heads dropping, all the players wanted it, Mustafi in particular I thought roused the team for a final push for goal. It was a win with mental strength, perseverance, and will to win. Reminded me of the Leicester game last year, and it’s great to have that in the locker when games don’t go how we want them to.
My girl walked by the TV during the replays and described the goal as a “scrufuffle”. I’ll take it.
Lol…and I bet Burnley fans will use words that will be shall we say,…. a lot more colorful?
Fuck them.
his girl too?
I like being lucky and the referees are absolutely fabulous this season.
We did it
Ox in the box, that’s what you want
Man, Kos really love to score important goals doesn’t he? toothless perfomance but a win is a win, even ugly (and with an unintentional handball but whatever, idgaf).
One Nil to the Arsenal!
But seriously, wtf was that? I wanted to kill myself so many times.
It was twenty years ago today,
Arsene Wenger taught our club to play
We’ve been going in and out of style
But we’re guaranteed to raise a smile
So may I introduce to you:
Arsene Wenger’s brilliant Arsenal team!
To the tune of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Ok so we’re all going to laugh at the sheer shitness of the goal, of course, but can I just say: Walcott, climbing highest amongst a host of huge Burnley thugs to win a header in the six yard box and flick it on for Kos and Ox to bundle into the net. The finish might have been risible but my god is that man Walcott showing some balls right now. So fucking impressed.
It’s amazing what putting in effort will do for you. I for one was someone that thought we should have sold him in the summer but he has totally justified his inclusion in the starting 11 this season. Every time I see a guy playing like a bat out of hell it seems to be Walcott. Now that he has found this form he just needs to make sure he does it all season. I haven’t been this excited about seeing Walcott play in years!
The transformation of Walcott gives me the same joy as Coq’s rise
Never in doubt. (Lol)
A few things:
This game was crying out for Giroud.
How about Walcott winning the header that set up the goal?
Mustafi probably had the best crosses on the day.
Have a game, Pete Cech. MOTM? Maybe.
I like how Mustafi put in like three crosses in 15 seconds, all from exactly the same spot. He just didn’t give up.
Walcott is my MOTM. He was superb on every part of the pitch.
That feeling when you finally removed the piece of beef stuck in the darkest corner of your mouth
Okay that was nerve wrecking
It makes me puke to see crap teams like this Burnley get results with that anti-football they play. Soooo glad they fell and it tasted nice for them to swallow it in the very last second. They’re worse than Pulis teams even. Other small teams like Bournemouth at least try to play ffs
So glad with the 3 points. Ozil was totally out of the match today, hope he focuses when back from the intl. break.
As horrible as it may be to watch, there is nothing against the rules in doing so. It’s understandable that they do it as well – how many times have teams that ‘try to play’ been successful against us? I’d imagine the percentages would suggest it makes more sense to play ‘anti-football’. Besides, we don’t mind when it works against our rivals, do we? It’s up to the better teams to break down the lesser teams that employ that game plan. Having players costing up to 5 times Burnley’s record transfer and a wage bill six times the size of… Read more »
Why “should” it be enough? Who guaranteed that more expensive players will, if they try hard enough, be able to break down a less talented team entirely bent on parking the bus? The limits of human biology dictates that it just doesn’t work like that. Football is a game that is seriously skewed towards defense, since, without the use of the hands (which evolved for us to use them to control like 90% of the tools and other objects in our environment), controlling the ball in such a way as to get past 11 opponents and put it in the… Read more »
More expensive players = better, normally.
RE: watching football about entertainment – I’m sure Burnley supporters and fans of our rivals would’ve been thoroughly entertained if it had finished 0-0.
1. I didn’t deny that being more expensive normally means being better at football. If you actually stopped to comprehend what I’d written before commenting, you might see that my whole point was that being better doesn’t mean you “should” be able to break a team down, because football is set up in such a way that much worse players can, with decent organization, make it incredibly hard for much better players to even score once. 2. Maybe Burnley fans like watching turgid sh*t for two hours every week, provided they get a draw. As I said above, that’s just… Read more »
I honestly don’t have a problem when smaller teams do it, however frustrating it may be.
It’s when teams like Chelsea (and now Man United I guess) do it, that’s when it grinds my gears. How dare you spend so much on players and enter games refusing to play some real football.
I don’t want to come across as some pussy, but I really love Arsenal
Burnley were massively good at what their doing. They also should not bemoan that touch of Laurent’s arm. If anything it was extra pair of hand to help their goalkeeper. But sadly the ball still went in 🙂
Maradona who? We have Koscielny’s hand!!!
Anyone seen Oezil?
Good game of handball in the Burnley box. Of course if they can play handball so can we.
Playing poorly and get away with 3 points – priceless
Very happy
It just had to be. Arsene at 20.
Thank God Koscielny followed the ball to the end.
My heart shifted from left to right during the course of this match, every nail bitten off was worth it at the end. This 3 points are just what win you the league at the end of the day. COYG. Kos the boss.
Nice win by the Arsenal, the haters will say that it is controversial because it was scored by the Gunners but if Burnley scored such a goal against Arsenal, then scripted pundits & other fans will say that Arsenal lost because they don’t have steel. Well, they have showed STEEL today.
Well deserved by the only team that tried to play football against a bunch of guys that could only put 11 men behind the ball
Nice strong hands from Kos, a keeper would have been proud of that. Would have been easy to go at it limp-wristed and not get the required redirection on the ball.
Snatch and grab! Literarily…well almost for Koscielny. They did it to Liverpool and we did it to them. As seen from City capitulating to Spurs, not an easy game to come back from CL and play against 8 men in the box. Would have liked to see Giroud on last 20 minutes but no where to be seen. Plenty of sideways passing crosses to no one and running into congestion. As mentioned before we need alternatives breaking different teams down. Could have done with GIroud’s presence as the game wore on and the entire Burnley team retreated into their box.… Read more »
Agree on Giroud providing an alternative option. The worry I have is that he needs a run of games to play well, which he isn’t going to get as things stand. He’s looked completely off the pace in the substitute appearances he’s made so far.
It would be a good thing if he can play in the EFL Cup (hopefully we play a few more games in the competition) to sharpen him up.
Great 3 points. Arsenal played well but hands up to Burnley who gave us a hard time with their good defensive setup! This will only make us stronger and more resilient.
Got away with that one.
When it’s 3am, that first half wasn’t the easiest to get through but I’m sure glad I stuck it out.
I admire your resolve.
Captain’s intervention. Kos the boss will win us the league.
Mark of champions? Cos that was eye gougingly bad.
I did enjoy Kostafi vs Vokes. That STEEL
The difference today from the last three games imo.
Ozil did not play very well.
Walcott played at 80% rather than 95%.
Alexis starting giving the ball away again.
Mustafi got too comfortable with his distribution.
Xhaka did not improve.
Iwobi too comfortable also.
Anyway we won! COYG!
What absolute bollix.
Times like this you wonder whether sending Jack on loan was a wise decision (Granted the player was pushing for the move)
COuld have done with Jack (dribbling) as an alternative. Elneny is useful to close games out (maybe) but I don’t think he added anything for us coming on besides a fresh pair of legs.
I really miss Diaby. He would have dribbled/bullied his way through the middle, past half the Burnley team, scored a blinder… (but of course got injured thereafter for the rest of the next two seasons)
I don’t miss two glass-bones players whatsoever. Anybody would have a difficult time against a team that put 11 guys almost inside their own box
Potential champions always find a way to win and the critics can call it whatever they want ‘lucky’, ‘Ugly’, ‘below par’, blah blah blah!….but who cares?
Funny thing is this is exactly what Chelshit was doing the season they won the league…..finding a way to win, and these same pundits were waxing lyrics about their strength of character, desire, and this being what champions do”?
Tbh every time we win with a bad performance it’s said that it was ‘a mark of champions’. Until we fall out of the title race and then with hindsight it just looks like dumb luck.
Let’s hope this is different!
Don’t worry, everything was according to plan. Everything.
You forgot to mention that Burnley had a handball that should have been called as well right before the corner. The focus about this win will be Kos handball.
Fair play to Burnley…they dug deep and were well drilled!! For us a very important 3 points..come the end of the season that mental goal could be really important:)
Thank God we won… .
Great defensive display…… More like boring dreadful mind numbing destestable football!
2 minutes? Thought bloody hell must be putting everyone out of their misery.
Last seconds pure JOY!!
We couldn’t could we??