Eddie so steady as Illan scuttles ship
NKETIAH IS RARE LEVEL HEAD IN MATCH FULL OF ERRORS
IT WAS the craziest match Arsenal have ever contrived so hard to throw away.
And yet a firmer header from Rodrigo than the faint flick he produced in the final minute might yet have saved a Leeds side that seems hell-bent on relegation.
The Yorkshire club have been scuttling towards the swirling water of the Championship like crabs released at the foot of the pier. But their erratic dash was never so clumsy and manic as it seemed in the glaring sunshine of the Emirates.
Goalkeeper Illan Meslier got his limbs in an untidy mess over a backpass, allowing Eddie Nketiah to tackle him on his goal-line and poke Arsenal in front after five minutes.
Within 10 minutes, the whole defence had tripped over itself so badly in a bid to stop Gabriel Martinelli that nobody thought about marking Nketiah, who calmly added a second.
Most unforgivable of all was the challenge by defender Luke Ayling on Martinelli after 29 minutes. Both Ayling’s feet were well off the ground to earn one of the clearest red cards of the season.
Ayling, right, will play no further part this season and was forced to watch from the sidelines as Arsenal created, and wasted, chance after chance against his team-mates now languishing in the bottom three. Only an acrobatic clearance off the line by Diego Llorente stopped a third from a Martin Odegaard free-kick and, when Nketiah came close to completing his hat-trick 10 minutes after the restart, the result seemed a foregone conclusion.
This season has been anything but straightforward, however. In the 66th minute, Leeds forced a corner against the run of play and Llorente converted at the far post. Meslier was thrown forward to see if he could create goals at both ends of the pitch and finally, amid the mayhem, Junior Firpo’s goalward header only brushed the hair of Rodrigo and was grabbed gratefully by Aaron Ramsdale.
Relieved Arsenal fans chanted, “Eddie! Eddie!” when the final whistle blew. Nketiah’s late burst in the side has reinvigorated Arsenal’s topfour hopes but he bizarrely remains out of contract at the end of a season in which the club’s star striker, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was exiled and then sold, and his replacement, Alexandre Lacazette handed the armband but then benched.
If Arsenal win at Tottenham on Thursday, they are back where they desperately want to be, in the Champions League. However, nothing about what has happened thus far suggests it will be anything like that straightforward.
ARSENAL (4-2-3-1): Ramsdale 6; Tomiyasu 6, Holding 7, Gabriel 6, Soares 6; Elneny 7, Xhaka 6; Saka 7 (Pepe 68, 6), Odegaard 8, Martinelli 8; Nketiah 8 (Lacazette 90). Goals: Nketiah 5, 10.
LEEDS (4-2-3-1): Meslier 3; Ayling 2, Koch 5, Llorente 7, Firpo 5; Klich 6 (Bate 45, 5), Phillips 7; Raphinha 5 (Rodrigo 60, 7), Harrison 6, James 6; Gelhardt 5 (Struijk 29, 6). Goal: Llorente 66.
Sent off: Ayling 29.
ARSENAL’S RUN-IN: Thurs: Tottenham (a); May 16: Newcastle (a); May 22: Everton (h).
LEEDS’ RUN-IN: Wed: Chelsea (h); Sun: Brighton (h); May 22: Brentford (h).