Our boys have secured their passage into the semi-final of the FA cup, leaving it late to put Sheffield United to the sword with an injury-time winner.
Arsenal started the game very much on the back-foot, and even looked to have fallen behind as the hosts put the ball into the back of the net, only for the goal to correctly be ruled out for offside.
We continued to be up against it until we broke forward into midway through the half, when Lacazette was tackled from behind on the inside edge of the box, and Nicolas Pepe dispatched coolly from the spot.
The hosts continued to prove difficult to break down, and kept their organisation to go into the break without our side having notched up a single shot on target according to the stats, with penalties clearly not accounted for.
We started the second half marginally better, and were at least giving as good as we got, but as the half drew on, it was the Blades who were once again piling the pressure on.
It was almost looking inevitable that the home side were going to score eventually, and then they did very late on, which looked set to send the game into extra time.
David McGoldrick ran into a loose cross to powerfully head home past the Argentine keeper, but the fun was yet to be over.
Once the officials showed five minutes of player left to run after the 90, the game came to life, and an unlikely source in Dani Ceballos was the player to break in behind the defence as he took the ball off Nketiah who was running away from goal, and slots home.
This was not a match for the feint-hearted, and despite being ahead for more than 60 minutes of the match, I’m still a little shocked that we got the result.
This team can take credit in winning against an extremely organised opponent, but our problems are really beginning to show by the bucket-load.
Will our team get things organised before the end of the season? Were Sheffield United that good today that they made us look bad, or are we simply playing below-standard?
Patrick
