THEO WALCOTT STRUCK twice as 10-man Arsenal moved level with Premier League leaders Manchester City and consigned Bob Bradley to an enthralling 3-2 defeat in his first match in charge of Swansea City.
Some slack defending from Swansea was punished by Walcott twice in the first half at the Emirates Stadium, taking his tally to six goals in his last five Arsenal appearances in all competitions.
However, Gylfi Sigurdsson, leading the line with Bradley not including a recognised striker in his first line-up, marked his 100th appearance for the club with an excellent finish to give the visitors hope ahead of the second half.
Mesut Ozil, celebrating his 28th birthday, then slammed a volley beyond former Arsenal goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski, but second-half Swansea substitute Borja Baston pegged back the hosts with his first goal for the club.
The comfortable grip Arsene Wenger’s men had on the game began to vanish when Granit Xhaka was shown a straight red card — his fourth dismissal since the start of last season and more than any other player in the top five European leagues — for lunging in on Modou Barrow with 20 minutes remaining.
However, Arsenal hung on to end a run of four top-flight home matches against Swansea without a win and join City at the summit on 19 points from eight games.
Bradley’s team struggled to keep the ball in the early exchanges and Shkodran Mustafi almost made the breakthrough for Arsenal with a near-post header from Ozil’s corner that struck the crossbar.
But Arsenal made the breakthrough in the 26th minute. Hector Bellerin headed Alexis Sanchez’s looped pass across goal and Walcott stole in ahead of the dawdling Jordi Amat to guide his shot inside the near post.
Sanchez and Bellerin had chances to extend the lead, but it was Walcott who doubled his and Arsenal’s tally. Jack Cork’s poor headed clearance from a corner fell straight at the feet of the England international, who drilled home on the spin.
However, Xhaka gifted Swansea a route back into the game when he stumbled during a stepover and Sigurdsson pounced to curl a beautiful effort into the top-left corner. Amat, who earlier appeared to catch Walcott in the face with a high arm, then spurned a chance to equalise when he headed straight at Petr Cech in first-half stoppage time.
Walcott fired a chance to complete his hat-trick straight at Fabianski, but Ozil restored Arsenal’s two-goal cushion with a thumping volley from inside the six-yard box.
An attacking switch from Bradley that saw Borja replace Leon Britton paid dividends in the 66th minute when the Spaniard slotted home off a brilliant cutback from Barrow.
The game looked in danger of slipping away from Arsenal when Xhaka was shown a straight red card for a reckless tackle from behind on Barrow. Barrow, who later hobbled off and was replaced by Angel Rangel, sent a header straight at Cech before Sigurdsson rifled over with 10 minutes remaining.
Walcott came agonisingly close to his third but his low shot from the edge of the area hit the inside of the post and came out. The forward spurned another chance to complete the hat-trick when he turned substitute Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s pass onto the bar in the fourth minute of stoppage time, but Arsenal held on to take all three points.
Monaghan putting it up to Dublin in the second half certainly not a walk over. 53 minutes in and all square
League final for the rebels but will have to step it up against the Dubs as I expect them to brush Monaghan aside. Think it’s time the Northern to drop the blanket defence…. shocking to watch.
It’s been adopted by all teams below Division 1, if they try to match the big guns man to man they’ll get blown out if the water! It’s no longer just a Northern style
Maybe open your eyes Owl when watching a match and form your own unique opinions instead of following the media’s approach on criticising the northern teams. Donegal for one don’t have a blanket defence for the sake of negativity. The have a system that works and forwards that can cause real damage like against Dublin last year. They scored 19 points today. What a terribly negative team….
Maybe you should watch that game again. … blanket defence on show all day. Cork put pressure on them to come out and play and NOT because it was Donegals game plan. My opinions are formed by actually watching the game and not just reading the result…
You sir, can suck my white hammer.
Good man Jimmy. … constructive yet to the point !
Well I was at the game today so i saw quite clearly how Donegal played. You clearly have little understanding of how their tactics work. You may as well stick to the blanket criticism of every ulster team playing purely negative football.
How their tactics work ????
Yes I can see it works a treat. Silly little comment.