At some point
Arsenal may tire of lurching from famine to feast and offer their supporters a square meal. That day could hardly look further away, though, after a mindboggling 90 minutes into which they distilled their vibrant best and shambolic worst. At half-time there was the sense that the Unai Emery era could be on the verge of falling into accelerated decline. His team were behind to a John McGinn goal and a man down after Ainsley Maitland-Niles’s careless red card. They had barely done a thing right but by the end they were celebrating a man who can do no wrong.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang had already scored 13 goals in his last 11 club games so when he won and shaped to take a free-kick just outside the penalty area it was tempting, just for once, to make a prediction in a game involving Arsenal. They had just levelled the score for a second time, through Calum Chambers, and an atmosphere that had previously hummed with discontent was now crackling. The position looked set up for someone of his peerless finishing ability and so it proved, his whipped effort flying past Tom Heaton to send the Emirates delirious.