We moved to the top of the Premier League as Kai Havertz’s fourth goal in successive league games sealed a hard-fought win over Brentford.
Declan Rice opened the scoring with a fine header, but an error from the returning Aaron Ramsdale just before half-time allowed Bees striker Yoane Wissa to divert his clearance into our net to level the scores.
Our keeper redeemed himself with two great saves in the second half to keep us level, before Havertz popped up with five minutes remaining to net the strike that sent us back to the division’s summit after eight successive domestic victories.
Having scored 21 times in our previous four league matches, we were quickly on the look for number 22, and just two minutes in Ivan Toney had to nudge a wicked Rice corner off his goalline to avoid suffering a quick concession.
But given our razor-sharp form in front of goal, it always looked like we would soon find the net and that proved to be the case after 18 minutes.
Ben White found Bukayo Saka on the right flank, who returned it to the full-back. He had ample time to put a pinpoint delivery into the area where Rice had got in front of Mads Roerslev to glance a fine header past Mark Flekken and net his sixth goal of the campaign – the best return of his career.
Filled with confidence, our attack was purring and were soon carving out more chances. Havertz shot straight at Flekken after some neat footwork from Martin Odegaard, and with 10 minutes of the half remaining the German was sent one-on-on with the keeper and dinked the ball past him, but agonisingly wide of the far post.
Saka then drilled an attempt over the bar as we looked to double our lead, but in first-half stoppage-time, we suffered an unlikely setback.
There seemed little danger when William Saliba played the ball was played back to Ramsdale, but he dallied and was closed down by Wissa who blocked the clearance and saw it deflect into the net, to score for the third successive game and hand the visitors a shock equaliser.
After the interval our shot-stopper came to the rescue though. Toney tried to catch him out off his line from 40 yards with an audacious attempt and just as it looked to be sneaking over Ramsdale, he managed to claw it out of the sky and away for a corner.
But the atmosphere inside Emirates Stadium was rocking as our supporters drove our players forward and we nearly conjured up the all-important second goal when Gabriel showed his prowess from a corner to head goalwards but saw it scrambled off the line by a couple of Bees.
Having lost seven of their last eight Premier League away games Thomas Frank’s team seemed desperate to grab a point and tried to eat up as much time as possible by taking their time over throw-ins and set-pieces, and they nearly managed to spring another surprise with 20 minutes remaining when Nathan Collins found himself in an advanced position and headed towards the top corner but Ramsdale again produced heroics to acrobatically tip it over.
The game was on a knife edge and Rice came so close to grabbing his second of the evening when after a corner was cleared back to Odegaard he teed up the England man who saw a first-time effort ping off the top corner of the woodwork, but eventually our pressure told with five minutes to go.
Once again White was in the thick of the action again, this time linking up with Odegaard before dinking a cross into the box and this time it was Havertz who powered it past Flekken to score yet again and give the Gooners in attendance something to celebrate for their efforts.
We then saw out nine minutes of stoppage time to secure our third win of the campaign over Brentford, and move to the division’s summit ahead of Liverpool’s game with Manchester City on Sunday afternoon.
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