Sports
Arsenal beat Bournemouth in amazing comeback win with Reiss Nelson’s 97th-minute winner
Arsenal fought back against Bournemouth to claim all three points at the Emirates with the latest of late shows.
Reiss Nelson’s strike, deep into injury time, sent the Emirates in raptures on an afternoon that could prove defining in the title race. The Cherries scored the second fast goal in the competition’s history when Philip Billing finished within ten seconds.
The Gunners, who had seen Manchester City win just hours earlier, failed to make their pressure count before half-time and then fell two goals behind before the hour mark.
Marcos Senesi headed home in front of Bournemouth’s travelling faithful before Thomas Partey cut the deficit just minutes later. Ben White rounded off the comeback to set up a grandstand final 20 minutes. The hosts had all the momentum but couldn’t find the decisive fifth goal, even with a mammoth six minutes of added time.
They enjoyed the majority of possession with VAR consulted on several contentious calls, but the Premier League strugglers looked set to hold out – that was until Nelson’s late thunderbolt – which had the entire Arsenal bench celebrating on the pitch.
If Arsenal go on to claim a first league title since 2004, then an afternoon in March may well be pointed to as a pivotal moment. With an hour gone the Gunners trailed by two goals to Bournemouth, who threatened to blow the title race wide open.
A Partey goal after 62 minutes changed all that and, when White levelled the contest after 70 minutes, there was always a sense of inevitability about where the fifth goal would go. Of course it was to the hosts, who re-establish their five point lead at the top when it could’ve been just two.
Games that appear routine wins will be anything but in the final stretch of the campaign and this clash in north London highlighted that. Arsenal though showed a character that will have had a deflating impact on their rivals watching on.
Granit Xhaka’s absence from the starting XI was the headline before kick-off with the Swiss star being handed a rare afternoon on the bench. It allowed Fabio Vieira to come in having rarely started since his summer move from Porto.
The playmaker has had to deal with substitute cameos, which has somewhat limited him. His only start came at Brentford earlier this season, where he capped an impressive display with his only league goal of the campaign. Arsenal’s dominance with the ball was always going to play to his strengths and he occupied a more advanced role than Xhaka would adopt.
On the face of it, this game was the ideal opportunity to throw Vieira into the mix, but you get the impression Xhaka still provides more defensive assurances against the better sides in the league, thus the Portuguese’s time as a starter may be short lived.
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