You know how sometimes weird situations like history repeat themselves? I mentioned on the blog yesterday that The Management was coming with me to the game as I had a spare seat next to me. She’d been to the 5-2 against the Scum the first time around, then when she came the second time to the NLD, we got the same result. The last time she was at The Emirates we beat Leicester 4-2, so as we exited the ground with that exact scoreline, I reflected to myself on that little quirk of fate to her.

“I always knew they’d win though” she said. What’s even weirder was that at 2-2 and 91 minutes on the clock, she turned to me really calmly and said “don’t worry about it they are going to score. I have a feeling”.

If she’s going to have ‘feelings’ like that more often then she can have my seat, because last-gasp winners aren’t the norm and whilst we’ve had a few since we’ve been good in the last two-and-a-bit season’s since we’ve challenged for the title, this kind of fortune of belief is something we might be able to use more of. Last weekend it was us that felt the gut punch of injury time goals at the death, but this weekend it was us who had those joys, and my oh my did we deserve it. Because for all of the wife’s sagely nodding and calmness, the reality is that we were just a few minutes away from a really disappointing draw and outcome that would have belied the reality of the game. I looked it up afterwards: the 36 shots that Arsenal had against Leicester equals the top ten most shots EVER HAD by a team in the Premier League era. Arsenal absolutely battered Leicester.

And it wasn’t pot-shots from distance, either. There were some in there, as well as shots that had been blazed over from the likes of Martinelli in the first half, as well as  Havertz and Calafiori in the second, but by the time the final whistle had gone the Leicester ‘Keeper Hermansen had made 13 saves to keep his side in it. We absolutely deserved all three points yesterday, but at the same time it was the kind of goalkeeping display that you’d almost say doesn’t deserve to be on the wrong end of a defeat with four goals conceded.

The game itself had started and got to half time exactly as you’d have hoped it would and expected it to be. As I mentioned yesterday Leicester were sitting deep, were having most of their touches in their own half and it was essential a game of Arsenal’s attack and Leicester’s defence. These sort of games are characterised by the timing of the first goal – if it comes – and Leicester’s approach was to clearly try to stay compact, get to half time and start to build in confidence as the home side became more frustrated. But when you get an early(ish) goal like we did through Martinelli on 20 minutes, the game state changed and it meant Leicester couldn’t just sit back and do nothing. The goal itself was something that of all of the players on that pitch that needed one, it was Martinelli, who has now followed up his assist last weekend by getting off the mark this weekend. Hopefully this can unlock him and he can relax a little more now he is off the mark. And we were off the mark and he problem the Foxes had now was that this was an Arsenal side in no mood to let them get out. We continued to press and not afford them any time to get out and by halftime we’d had 76% possession, xG of 1.32, three big chances, 13 shots in total and their goalkeeper had already made three decent saves. Leicester had one off target speculative effort.

So when Trossard scored smartly in added time of that first half, this felt like the most routine of afternoon’s you’re going to get.

The problem is always that football is a game of variables and any team can score at any minute regardless of whether they deserve it or not. Just two minutes in to that second half the free kick (that wasn’t a foul by the way – Vardy went down very easily and there’s no way Saliba deserved a yellow) that led to their goal took a fairly sizeable deflecting from Justin’s head on to Havertz and around us in Block Five we were all looking at ourselves like “hold on, what’s happening here then?”. When a goal is scored that early in a half the nerves set in that we’re going to have a half of complacency and if you’d have looked at the score line in isolation when Leicester got their equaliser, you might have thought that’s exactly what happened, but the truth is we continued to batter Leicester either side of their equaliser. And I’m pretty sure that when Justin scored what you have to say is a worldie of a finish, it was only their second shot on target in the whole match. They’d scored both of them.

It felt like a really cruel twist of fate for us, but with 30+ minutes on the clock, there was time for us to bang down the door, which we duly did. Nwaneri came on (and looked superb by the way) and immediately forced a same from Hermansen. Calafiori forced a great save. Havertz nearly flicked one home from close range – another save from Hermansen – then Trossard swung a leg and forced a brilliant palm from Hermansen to flick the ball away for one of our bajillion corners of the day. Then, just as you’re thinking that justice is not going to be served and we’re going to be repeating the result of last weekend, Trossard steers it in off Ndidi to secure the points, with a minute or two left for Havertz to get off the mark too.

We left it late, we deserved the win, but season’s are built on mini stories within stories like yesterday’s win. It was an Arsenal who were given maximum punishment from the oppositions minimum efforts on our goal, but the pressure and willingness to win did the job and we keep on marching. Two weekend’s ago people were talking about how defeat to the Scum and City could leave us eight points off them and out of the title race. Today we find ourselves level with them, having played harder games than them and just a couple of points off a Liverpool team that have certainly had a more favourable run of fixtures than us so far. Onwards and upwards. And it’s PSG next weekend.

I’m going live on the Same Old Arsenal pod at 9.30am if you fancy doing a bit of a digest – you can watch that on YouTube here. Otherwise, I’ll catch you tomorrow as we build up to PSG at home.