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A first half mistake from Granit Xhaka saw a dominant Arsenal forced to a 1-1 draw against Burnley at Turf Moor, in the Premier League early kick-off.
It was a game the Arsenal players will feel hard done by following some questionable calls by the referee and VAR.
A win for the Gunners would have seen them cut the points from fourth place to seven points but remain in 10th.
Arsenal got off to the best start in the sixth minute thanks to Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang who received a pass from Willian, cut in and hit a low shot which Nick Pope failed to stop.
The visitors should have added to their opener but missed very good chances which eventually came back to hunt them.
With seven minutes left in the first half Burnley equalized after Xhaka, who received a pass from Bernd Leno inside the box but ended up hitting his attempted clear out to Chris Wood and into the net.
Arsenal started brightly in the second half but Bukayo Saka was his goal bound shot blocked while Martin Odegaard’s shot just outside the box was well saved by Pope.
The Gunners felt they should have been awarded a penalty after Erik Pieters stopped Nicolas Pepe’s attempted dribble with his hand but referee Andre Marriner waved play on.
Few minutes later Burnley almost took the lead after a lovely one-two between Wood and Vydra but Leno denied the former with his outstretched leg.
Arsenal then attacked at the other end with Kieran Tierney sending in a delightful low cross but Pepe missed from eight yard.
Then in the dying minutes of the game Arsenal were awarded a penalty after Pieters was judged to have used his arm to deflect Pepe’s goal bound shot against the bar, and was shown a red card.
But after consultations with VAR the penalty and red card was overturned as it was decided that he actually used his shoulder.
2 Comments
If the match ended in a draw, how then did a player cost his team “all three points”?. Worse still, that error occurred in the first half and the entire team still had well over forty five minutes to win the game!
Lazy sports reporting, I tell you. CompleteSports must henceforth append the writer’s name to the article so we get to see who is incompetent.
Burnley are the happy beneficiaries of another avoidable error. A carbon copy of the mistake Ndidi made against them last week. If Leno had kept it simple and just booted the ball upfield, Burnley would not have scored, and Arsenal would likely have finished up with all 3 points. This desire to play intricate passes in your danger area or penalty box has put many teams in unnecessary wahala.
E get why the Americans keep using the KISS acronym as a key principle in designing systems- KEEP IT SIMPLE AND STRAIGHTFORWARD. A design that is complex, hard to understand and implement will usually implode when it is needed.
As we go into the crucial Benin game, a mistake like this can easily cost us the match. If there is no pass open, just clear the ball out of your danger area. You can make intricate passes upfront. NOT IN YOUR PENALTY BOX!