Arsenal deserve a hearty pat on the back for clinching on with clenched teeth and staging a thrilling recovery to beat Bournemouth 3-2 and maintain their five-point cushion in the title race after champions Manchester City dialed the heater a notch higher earlier on Saturday by beating Newcastle United.
City’s 2-0 win had whittled Arsenal’s advantage down to two points and when leaders Arsenal were trailing 2-0 with an hour had lapsed in north London it suddenly looked like they had loosened their grip on the top spot.
However timely goals from Thomas Partey and substitutes Ben White and Reiss Nelson – the latter’s coming in the seventh minute of stoppage time – triggered off riotous scenes of celebration.
It was certainly a cliffhanger as prior to this Arsenal had not won a Premier League game in which they had trailed by at least two goals since 2012 so things looked ominous for the Gunners as they were stunned by Bournemouth before the former began to regain their composure.
Right off the stopwatch, the visitors needed only 9.1 seconds to be catapulted ahead when Philip Billing scored with a close range finish after a sassy move straight from the kickoff – making this the second quickest goal in Premier League history behind Shane Long’s 7.69 seconds effort for Southampton against Watford in 2019.
Then, just before the hour mark, Marcos Senesi ascended majestically to head in a second for his side, which prompted a gutsy Arsenal response with Thomas Partey prodding a shot past Bournemouth keeper Neto shortly after the hour mark.
White’s volley crossed the line barely eight minutes later and the game went deep into stoppage time when all hell broke loose as the ball fell to Nelson from a corner and he sent a left-foot slammer headed unerringly into the corner of the net to seal a miraculous victory which moved Arsenal to 63 points from 26 games to City’s 58.
“Everybody is overwhelmed a bit. It was madness from the first minute of the game where we defended so poorly and then you have to climb a mountain,” a still-stunned Arsenal head coach Mikel Arteta told reporters post-match.