Following contrasting victories in the EFL Cup in midweek, Arsenal and Leicester City cross paths in Saturday’s Premier League bout at the Emirates Stadium.
While the Gunners demolished Bolton Wanderers 5-1 on Wednesday evening, their newly-promoted visitors needed some goalkeeping heroics to get over the line against Walsall.
The kids were more than all right for Mikel Arteta on Wednesday evening, where the visit of League One outfit Bolton Wanderers for the EFL Cup saw the Arsenal manager start four teenagers who had not even been born when the Gunners played their first non-competitive match at the Emirates Stadium.
One of those – 16-year-old goalkeeper Jack Porter – became the youngest-ever starter for Arsenal’s men’s team, and even though he was denied a debut clean sheet, the teenager witnessed fellow academy star Ethan Nwaneri score twice while Raheem Sterling, Kai Havertz and Declan Rice also got in on the act.
Rewarded for their endeavours with a fourth-round tie against Preston North End, Arsenal – who are still unbeaten in all tournaments this season – return to top-flight duty a week on from their explosive Etihad affair, where only a 98th-minute John Stones equaliser denied the Gunners a first win away to Manchester City since January 2015.
Putting every man behind the ball after Leandro Trossard’s sending-off saw Arteta take the flak from rival fans and indeed players, but few could realistically knock the Spaniard for employing an all-out defensive approach with a numerical disadvantage at the home of the English champions.
Failure to cling onto their one-goal advantage saw Arsenal miss the chance to leapfrog Man City at the summit, though – they currently sit fourth with a two-point gap to make up to the champions – but their win rate of 70% in 2024 is their joint-best in a single calendar year along with 1932.
Furthermore, Arsenal are seldom outfought on their own patch when newly-promoted teams come to town, having strung together a 39-game unbeaten run at the Emirates versus such clubs in the Premier League since being outclassed by Newcastle United in 2010.
As Arsenal scored against Bolton for fun in midweek, there was no way through for Leicester against a resolute Walsall defence at Banks’s Stadium, where Steve Cooper’s men were taken all the way to penalties by their plucky League Two hosts.
However, Foxes goalkeeper Danny Ward – whose penalty heroics memorably lifted Huddersfield Town up to the Premier League in 2017 – was impenetrable from 12 yards, stopping all three of the Saddlers’ penalties as Ricardo Pereira, Conor Coady and Oliver Skipp sent Leicester through.
The manner of the Foxes’ hard-fought victory will hardly inspire confidence for a fourth-round trip to Old Trafford next month, though, and Cooper’s men now have bigger fish to fry in the Premier League, where they remain winless after last weekend’s 1-1 draw with Everton in abhorrent conditions.
While Leicester are one of six sides still searching for their first top-flight win of the season, their superior goal difference means that they are actually the highest-ranked of all those teams in 15th place, but only in their 2022-23 relegation season have they ever gone without victory in their first six games of a Premier League season.
Speaking of six-match streaks, Arsenal could secure a sextet of consecutive victories against their lowly opponents, whom they have defeated in each of their last five Premier League battles since a shock 1-0 Emirates loss during their dismal end to 2020.
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