Arsenal 2-2 Wolves
by Gene Sylvester
at Molineux

LEAGUE leaders Arsenal arrived at Molineux on a cold blustery Wednesday evening, boasting an ominous record against rock-bottom Wolves with the north London club having claimed five wins from their last five matches at this ground, without as much as conceding a goal.

Rob Edwards’s men were able to lay to rest both parts of that statistic as his troops fought back from 2-0 down to snatch a 2-2 draw at the death, courtesy of a 94th-minute goal from Wolverhampton’s 19-year-old debutant Tom Edozie, which capped off a spirited second-half fightback. 

The opening exchanges of this match didn’t bode well for the home side as the title contenders’ early domination reaped dividends as early as the 5th minute with Gunners captain Bukayo Saka stooping to nod home a Declan Rice cross from eight yards out.

The early goal and first-half domination of Mikel Arteta’s troops suggested that this was going to be a fairly routine win for Arsenal with Wolves unable to sustain any kind of possession in their opponents’ half of the pitch.

Wolves started the second-half with more endeavour but still found themselves going further behind courtesy of Piero Hincapie’s first goal for the Gunners.

It was a perfectly executed slide rule ball from Gabriel that sent the left-back through on goal, and he finished with composure of a seasoned striker, clipping the ball over Sa high into the net from 10 yards as the Wolves keeper tried to smother the ball at his feet.

Despite Arsenal doubling their lead, Wolves second-half resurgence finally paid off in the 60th minute when Santiago Bueno spread a ball out to the right where his namesake Hugo Bueno had remained following the previous corner.

The left-back came back inside onto his favoured left foot and curled a pearler into the top-left hand corner of the net beyond Raya’s dive to score his first Premier League goal for the club and send the Wolves fans into rapturous celebrations

“We started the second-half very well. We wanted to step forward a bit more and felt like tonight was the night to play on emotion and take a bit more risk with the conditions,” beamed Rob Edwards after the match and referring to the Arctic-like conditions. 

And the manager’s high risk approach was highlighted in the 84th minute, when he introduced 19-year-old Edozie to the action for his first team debut with his team 2-1 down and chasing an equaliser.

“We are still learning about him ourselves, but we just had a feeling,” admitted the Wolves manager when asked about the debutant. 

He went on to say: “I just put my arm around him and said this could be your moment so just go and take it,” and the youngster did just that.

Deep into injury-time, Mateus Mane floated a cross into the box where Raya and Gabriel got in each other’s way in their desperation to clear the danger.

The ball dropped to the feet of the youth academy product who showed nerves of steel to hit the ball first time towards goal, past the stranded Raya with the ball ricocheting off Riccardo Calfiori, onto the post and into the net.

This was much to the delight of the home supporters, with the away end flattened by the injury-time equaliser.

“He’s got a big smile on his face now,” concluded the Wolves boss.

Arteta was understandably less enthused by the result and performance of his team.

“We are disappointed with the way the game ended. Where it could have gone wrong, it went wrong today,” stated the Arsenal coach.