Here is the match report: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/feb/10/wolves-arsenal-premier-league-match-report
Arteta is happy with the result but annoyed by another red card: “We made it even more difficult, playing again with 10 men. Although the result is really positive for us, we suffered a lot in the last 20 minutes.” ASked specifically6 about the referee’s decision to show Martinelli two yellow cards for two separate incidents in the one piece of action, he replies: “I’ve never seen something like it. The rules can say that probably it’s possible but you have to be very, very willing to do that. We have seen something today that I had never seen happen before in my career.” Asked what he can do to stop his team getting so many red cards - this is the 15th of his reign - he says with a smile: “I have run out of ideas, I think.”
Lacazette’s verdict: “It means a lot of r us. We really wanted to win this game. We were disappointed after Burnley so we used the break to work a lot. Today we showed a lot of good things for the rest of the season ... I’m proud of my team because we handled it well .. Everyone at the back did their job.”
Full-time: Wolves 0-1 Arsenal
It wasn’t pretty but that’s a precious win for Arsenal. They showed grit and fight and flashes of quality and, of course, they made things tough for themselves by getting another avoidable red card, this time for Martinelli. But Gabriel’s scrappy first-half goal was enough to clinch victory. They’re up to fifth in the league, with two games in hand on fourth-placed West Ham!
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90+3 min: Chiquinho’s cross from the right. Jimenez’s attempted overhead kick under pressure from 15 yards. The ball loops high and over.
90+1 min: A collision between Podence and Gabriel leas to another stoppage ...
90 min: There will be at least five more minutes for Arsenal to endure ... which is the least they deserve bearing in mind that Gabriel started wasting time about half an hour ago.
87 min: Nice work down the left by Ait-Nouri, but Holding heads his vicious cross clear.
86 min: When is north London’s biggest club going to officially rename itself 10-Man Arsenal?
85 min: Podence crosses from the right. Dendoncker jumps highest to win the header but fails to find the target
84 min: Wolves take a corner short and then ping it to Neves at the edge of the box. His shot is deflected over for another corner.
82 min: It’s relentless pressure from Wolves!
Updated
81 min: Holding has been a welcome reinforcement for Arsenal. He keeps getting in Wolves way.
80 min: Wolves sub: Silva on, Coady off. Arsenal sub: Nketiah on, Lacazette off. “Martinelli’s sending off does raise an interesting philosophical point,” suggests R Ivanovitch. “Is it fair to be sent off for a second yellow card when you don’t even know you’re on the first one? On the other hand: just don’t behave like an idiot (twice).” Yeah, the latter: he had to have known he was going to get a yellow for the first offence, so he couldn’t assume that gave him a free hit.
Updated
78 min: Arsenal’s three central defenders are repelling everything Wolves can throw ... for now; they’re going to have to keep manning the barricades because Wolves aren’t going away.
76 min: Ramsdale goes flying again, this time to punch away a dangerous cross by Semedo.
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74 min: Arsenal substitution: Holding on, Saka off. Arteta clinging on for three points.
74 min: Ramsdale punches away a cross and then jumps to his feet to tip Saiss’s shot from 20 yards over the bar
72 min: Lacazette is sent racing clear ... Sa comes out to meet him ... Lacazette tries to curl it around the keeper and into the far corner .... but sends it wide.
Updated
71 min: Jimenez turns Ait-Nouri’s freekick into the net ... but he was offside.
Red card for Martinelli
He’s booked twice in two seconds! The first yellow was for pushing Podence to the floor to try to stop him taking a quick throw-in. But Podence took it, so Martinelli chased after Chiquinho and brought him down. Referee Michael Oliver trots over and shows him a yellow for the first offence and then another for the second!
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68 min: Arsenal substitution: Smith Row on, Odegaard off.
66 min: Tierney flings in a low throw. Dendoncker heads it away, then Chiquinho completes the clearance. Useful play by the sub, but Wolves brought him on to give new impetus to their attack and so far he has not had a chance to do that. Arsenal playing the game down the end they want to.
63 min: Wolves substitutions: Chiquinho on for his Wolves debut in place of Trincao. And Aït-Nouri replaces Marçal.
61 min: Gabriel booked for time-wasting.
60 min: Neves booked for catching Lacazette late on half-way.
59 min: Neves gets back to neutralise a dangerous Arsenal attack. Then he sends Podence scampering down the right. Podence makes good ground but only has one player to aim at ahead of him. Jimenez meets his cross but his gentle header from 15 yards never looks like beating Ramsdale.
57 min: Smart pass by Xhaka, inviting Tierney to sprint behind Semedo to retrieve. The wingback scrambles to cover, and tips the ball out for a corner.
55 min: Another promising Wolves counter-attack peters out because of a slack pass, this time by Podence.
54 min: Podence’s shot from the edge of the area after nifty work down the right by Semedo is deflected behind for a corner. Dendoncker heads wide from six yards from the corner. It was a difficult chance, as he had to stoop backwards to connect with the ball.
Updated
53 min: Trincao dances past two down the right and into the box. But, as so often, his final ball is useless.
49 min: Wolves get in behind Arsenal thanks to a cute pass by Saïss to Dendoncker. But the Belgian directs his cross from the left straight into Ramsdale’s arms.
48 min: Jimenez turns beautifully past Gabriel near half-way, but then runs into trouble when he should have released Podence out wide.
46 min: Off we go again. And on that note, Lenny Peters is one of a multitude of Arsenal fans who’ve written to express their concern that this game could yet unravel for them, what with Partey and Xhaka both on yellows already...
Half-time: Wolves 0-1 Arsenal
It’s been tight but Arsenal have looked the sharper up front, even if it took a scrappy goal from Gabriel to give them the lead. Wolves have hinted at threats but their last ball has gone awry every time.
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45+1 min: Xhaha booked for pulling back Trincao just the corner of the Arsenal box after misjudging a bounce. Neves goes for goal from the freekick, a poor option poorly executed.
Updated
45 min: Not saying the goal has gone to Gabriels head but he’s just tried to beat Sa from 40 yards. His shot sails over the bar by almost the same amount.
43 min: Lovely play by Saka, dodging past Marçal and then swapping passes with Odegaard before picking out Lacazette. The striker’s unloads a powerful shot from 18 yards. But it’s straight at Sa.
42 min: Lacazxette meets Odegaard’s corner at the near post, but the striker’s header is blocked by Coady. And Neves then sends Wolves racing downfield. They switch the play from the left to the right, from where Semedo tries to drill a low shot into the net from 20 yards. It whizzes a yard wide.
40 min: Play resumes, but Marçal is not OK. After blocking a cross by Cedric, he goes down in pain again. Apparently he hurt his back or side when falling after a header a couple of minutes ago.
Updated
39 min: Coady boots the ball out of play so that Marçal can receive treatment. Not sure what happen to him but he seems to be in pain.
37 min: More Wolves pressure. And this time Semedo curls over a nice cross. Jimenez leaps high to win the header but can’t get enough power on it to overly trouble Ramsdale, who saved comfortably from seven yards.
Updated
36 min: Saïss booked for jabbing his leg into Odegaard from behind.
35 min: Wolves have got into promising positions several times in the last few minutes but their deliveries - especially from Trincao - have been persistently wayward. Then Marçal shows how it should be done with a terrific ball to the back post, but Gabriel rises well to head to safety.
33 min: Partey becomes the first bookee of the game, seeing yellow for shunting Trincao to the ground near half way to stop a Wolves break.
31 min: Gabriel heads away a corner by Podence.
30 min: Arsenal are hunting for more. Martinelli jags in-field from the left wing and tries to ping in a dangerous cross. Coady heads clear, but Arsenal have new zest in their movement and are quick to regain possession.
The goal stands
And rightly so. There was no foul on the keeper.
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GOAL! Wolves 0-1 Arsenal (Gabriel 25)
But will it stand? There’s a VAR review afoot. The goal came from a corner, with Neves inadvertently heading on Martinelli’s delivery at the near post. It was half-cleared but White sent it back into the six-yard box. Lacazette and Sa went for the ball; the keeper missed it and Coady couldn’t tidy up before Gabriel pounced to poke into the net from two yards.
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23 min: Cedric whips in a lovely cross from the right. Lacazette gets in front of Coady but fails to connect from seven yards out.
21 min: A dinky move by Arsenal down the right, led by Saka, culminates with Odegaard shooting from the edge of the area, but it’s blocked by Coady.
18 min: Podence is becoming quite the pest for the Arsenal defence. He’s nippy and strong and clever.
15 min:A cross from the left by Podence triggers problems in the Arsenal box, but Partey eventually mops it up. Then Martinelli leads another counter; but three defenders converge on him and, with no support, he coughs up possession.
Updated
13 min: Martinelli twists away from two opponents in midfield and feeds Lacazette, who tries to play a return pass but his dispossessed by Dendoncker before he can do so.
11 min: It’s tight. Neither side has been able to find much space in the final third so far.
8 min: from mid-way inside the Arsenal half, Neves tries to curl a delicious pass through to Jimenez. It’s almost perfect, but Partey stretches out a leg to get to it just before the striker.
7 min: Martinelli is Arsenal’s preferred route of attack so far; he has seen plenty of the ball on the left wing and looked to stretch Kilman every time. The defender has just escaped a booking for bringing him down to nip a counter-attack in the bud, but he’s not likely to get away with another such foul.
Updated
4 min: A moment of panic in the Arsenal defence when Jimenez charges down an attempted clearance by Tierney. But the ball bounces kindly for Arsenal.
3 min: Kilman fails to cut out out a searching low pas by Gabriel. Martienlli latches on to it and races down the left before his cross is turned behind by the recovering Kilman. That brings the first corner of the game. Martinelli swings it in; Neves head it out at the near post.
2 min: Some perky early pressing from Arsenal, and Tierney nicks the ball off Kilman at the edge of the Wolves box. Neves darts back to help out his teammate and win the ball back.
1 min: Wolves v Arsenal is go!
“If Arsenal want someone to put the ball in the back of the net, they could try their top scorer, Smith Rowe, who can’t seem to get off the bench for some reason,” parps Zach Neeley.
“Now that he’s definitively gone, Arsenal fans can look to see how the team plays the false-Aubameyang role that the man himself was playing before his departure,” ventures Charles Antaki. “Since it consisted largely of not being the ruthlessly efficient striker he once was, the hope is that nobody takes on the mantle, and instead somebody - anybody - just puts the ball actually in the back of the opposition net.” Perhaps Lacazette, who’s wearing the captain’s armband today, will regain his sharpness?
Mikel Arteta Partey and Xhaka are “vital to the way we play” because “they glue the team together. They have the right qualities to play the role, with their maturity and experience.” As for Wolves, the Arsenal manager reckons “they are really organised, really compact, really difficult to play against, they don’t concede goals or chances at all.”
Romain Saiss tonight remembers Rayan Awram, who tragically lost his life in Morocco this week.
— Wolves (@Wolves) February 10, 2022
🇲🇦💛 pic.twitter.com/96v4NPKCTD
Joao Moutinho - who has a calf injury - is a significant absence for Wolves, but Marcal and Trincao return to the starting lineup and Jonny is on the bench. For Arsenal, Tomas Partey makes his first start since returning from the Africa Cup of Nations
Updated
Teams
Wolves: Sa; Kilman, Coady, Saïss; Semedo, Dendoncker, Neves, Marçal; Trincao, Jimenez, Podence
Subs: Ruddy, Hoever, Aït-Nouri, Jonny, Toti, Chiquino, Cundle, Silva, Hwang
Arsenal: Ramsdale; Cedric, White, Gabriel, Tierney; Partey, Xhaka; Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli; Lacazette
Subs: Okwonko, Awe, Holding, Tavares, Elneny, Lokonga, Smith Rowe, Pépé, Nketiah
Referee: Michael Oliver
Preamble
Hello and welcome to the first of two league encounters this month between Wolves and Arsenal, both of whom are trying to use their games in hand to leap into the top four, but only one of whom could make it. This is big!
Bruno Lage deserves high acclaim for getting this lean Wolves squad into the shake-up for Champions League qualification along with the likes of Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham. It is only proper that Arsenal are in the mix too given their resources but Mikel Arteta has earned praise at times this season thanks to sporadic evidence that his rebuilding and much-trumpeted process is bearing fruit. But Arsenal lost to Wolves at home and away last season: do the same again this month and Arteta can probably forget about a top four finish.
A high-stakes clash at a floodlit Molineux generally represents one of the great English football experiences – this one promises to be a belter!
