Leicester City star striker Jamie Vardy came off the bench to stun Arsenal and fire his side to a maiden Premier League victory at the Gunners on Sunday evening.
The ex-England international combined with new signing, and fellow substitute, Cengiz Under to head home in the 80th minute – to inflict a first home league defeat for Arsenal this calendar year.
Both sides came into the game off the back of some inconsistent results with the hosts narrowly losing 1-0 at Manchester City a week prior, while Brendan Rodgers’ side suffered the same fate with a 1-0 home defeat by Aston Villa.
Arsenal thought they had taken the lead within the first five minutes but Alexandre Lacazette’s striker was disallowed for offside. The France international thought he had headed home his fourth league goal of the season but VAR determined he was offside.
Arsenal looked to make the pressure count when David Luiz’s searching ball found Kieran Tierney on the left-hand side of the penalty box. The full back then fired a delivery across the face of goal but it narrowly missed the head of Alexandre Lacazette.
Mikel Arteta’s side were guilty of squandering the best chances of the game as they dominated the first half. However, despite creating several clear-cut opportunities they were unable to capitalise on them as the scored remained goalless at half-time.
The away side stuck to their gameplan in the second half by sitting back in their organised shape to frustrate Arsenal, while looking to counter-attack in possession.
And as the second half wore on Leicester slowly grew into the game, keeping possession for longer periods, as they looked to find the opening.
And then in the final 10 minutes of the match they struck. Youri Tielemans released Under with a pin-point ball over the top of the Arsenal defence, allowing the Turkish international to gift Jamie Vardy with an open goal to head them into a 1-0 lead.
Rodgers will be delighted with the way his side executed his tactics, with his choice of substitutions proving to be somewhat of a masterstroke, elevating the Foxes to fourth in the Premier League table.
After the game Arsenal manager Arteta, questioned VAR’s decision to rule out Lacazette’s early header, as he said: ‘We scored a goal that I don’t know how it was disallowed and in the second half it was about being patient and waiting for the right moment against a team that wanted to defend really deep.’
Leicester counterpart Rodgers was full of praise for his side: ‘The boys were outstanding. Our idea is that you’re playing against top quality players and you’ve got to deny them space.’
The Gunners will be looking to bounce back next time out in the Premier League when they travel to an out-of-sorts Manchester United on Sunday afternoon. For Leicester they travel to Leeds United next on Monday night.
