Leicester City 0-1 Arsenal
by Layth Yousif
at Filbert Way

GABRIEL MARTINELLI’S 46th-minute goal was enough to seal a vital 1-0 victory for Arsenal over Leicester City on Saturday and maintain their two-point lead at the top of the Premier League.

With the Gunners’ game in hand against Everton looming at Ashburton Grove on Wednesday, manager Mikel Arteta’s side have the opportunity to fully banish their recent wobbles — a winless three-game run that included a 1-0 defeat at Goodison Park in Everton boss’s Sean Dyche’s first game in charge.

Defeated Foxes’ boss Brendan Rodgers was certainly honest in his assessment after the match, conceding: “[Arsenal] are top of the league for a reason and I think they showed that.”

Arsenal were captained by Olexsandr Zinchencko “as a mark of respect and love on the first anniversary of the conflict in Ukraine,” but midfielder Thomas Partey was short of fitness and failed to make the starting XI, allowing Jorginho to start again following his last-gasp long-range strike in last weekend’s thrilling 4-2 victory at Aston Villa.

The visitors thought they had gone ahead with an outstanding strike by Leandro Trossard from outside the box, but referee Craig Pawson was asked to check the monitor by VAR and disallowed the strike following a foul by Ben White on Foxes keeper Danny Ward in the build-up to the goal.

No doubt assuaged by the win, a phlegmatic Arteta said: “It’s OK, that’s the decision, thankfully we went over it and we didn’t get lost on that and we managed to win the game.” 

While it was the correct decision, memories of inconsistency abounded, not least when recalling Gunners’ former keeper Bernd Leno being fouled in the build-up to Brentford midfielder Christian Norgaard’s goal against Arteta’s side at the start of last season. 

Those with shorter memories simply pointed to the fact that Harry Souttar, the Leicester centre-back, manhandled Bukayo Saka to the ground, yet VAR was not required to review the incident. Why?

Moments after Trossard’s cancelled strike, Leicester had the ball in the net through Kelechi Iheancho, but, again, the finish was correctly ruled out, this time for offside. 

Alas, it seems technology is not the problem with VAR. Unfortunately, the fault remains, as IT experts ruefully affirm, with the user. 

Arteta, as he did last week at Villa, sent his players out early from the interval in a bid to start the second half positively. They certainly did.

It was noteworthy how Trossard spent plenty of time troubling the Leicester backline by playing between the lines after Arteta opted to start with his signing from Brighton rather than Eddie Nketiah. 

This was underlined when Martinelli latched on to a through-ball from Trossard to slot home past the approaching Ward, putting Arsenal 1-0 ahead 51 seconds after the break, the Brazil forward showing bravery to finish before Leicester captain Wilfred Ndidi trod on his knee.

The 21-year-old eventually shrugged off the knock to continue, having scored two in two after none in his previous eight games.

If Arsenal’s title challenge is to succeed, it is important that every attacker chips in with goals, and the former Corinthians academy starlet has risen to the occasion this week after being benched for the Villa win. 

Despite the narrow margin, the Gunners maintained control to notch their 10th away win of the season, exceeding the nine they posted last season.

Reflecting on the result, Arteta said: “I am really pleased with the performance, we dominated the game … To win away at Villa then at Leicester is extremely difficult to do and we deserved to win both games.”

Everton are up next for Arsenal in this beguiling title chase, while Leicester are now only three points off the relegation zone, with a crunch trip to bottom-of-the-table Southampton next weekend.