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Keane Lewis-Potter speaks to TNT Sports. “A big point in the end … it could have gone either way in the end … we deserved a point … I’m happy … with the squad we’ve got, we can do special things … I should have scored the first [header] but I wasn’t going to make the same mistake … we’ve got a special group … we can definitely do something special this season … [a European place] is the aim … we’ll see at the end of the season.”
FULL TIME: Brentford 1-1 Arsenal
The whistle goes after a wonderfully entertaining second half. Anything could have happened during that period of injury time. In the centre circle, Declan Rice embraces Jordan Henderson, game recognising game. Breathless stuff.
90 min +7: Nope. Raya claims. Arsenal unsuccessfully try to counter. Brentford are allowed one last shot from distance, but Ouattara’s effort is blocked. Damsgaard was in space in the middle, too.
90 min +6: One last chance for Kayode to fling a throw into the box from the left. This is where the equaliser came from. Could Brentford steal it at the death?
90 min +5: On TNT, Lucy Ward names Sepp van den Berg as her player of the match.
90 min +4: Henry is down getting some treatment. He won’t continue. Hickey prepares to come on. This will now go past the plus-five-minute mark.
90 min +3: This is absurd basketball brilliance! Now Arsenal should score, Timber romping down the middle. He’s got the choice of shooting or finding Martinelli to his left. He feeds Martinelli, who enters the box, one on one with Kelleher, and looks for the bottom right. Kelleher extends an arm to save brilliantly! What a finish to this game!
90 min +2: Another huge moment for Brentford, as Thiago strides into the Arsenal box from a tight-ish angle, but fails to work Raya with his shot, larruping a rush-of-blood-fuelled thriker miles over the bar!
90 min +1: Henry plays Ouattara into space down the left with a cute pass. Ouattara enters the box and cuts back for Damsgaard, rushing towards the penalty spot. He’s about to shoot when Rice arrives from nowhere and pokes the ball away. What a saver!
90 min: There will be five additional minutes. Penny for the thoughts of Pep Guardiola and Unai Emery right now.
89 min: The xG is now 1.25 to 0.53. Brentford doing nearly all of the pushing forward.
87 min: Yanelt creams a glorious pass down the left to give Thiago something to chase. Thiago drops a shoulder to barge his way infield, and past Mosquera. He’s clear on goal! But the defender recovers to arrive on the striker’s shoulder and block, just as Thiago prepares to shoot! This really is on the knife-edge.
86 min: Ouattara is booked for complaining after being lightly tugged by Timber. Everyone bubbling at 99.9 degrees. A feeling that a winner here for either side would be huge.
84 min: Janelt whips it in high. Raya fingertips it away from danger, at the expense of a corner. Jensen comes across to take. Raya falls over. The referee issues some diktats. Jensen eventually takes. Arsenal clear. The atmosphere continues to bubble. This is monstrous fun.
83 min: Ouattara nips in ahead of Gabriel down the right. The defender hangs a leg around the attacker and brings him down. A second booking? It should be, but the referee shows clemency. It’s a free kick in a dangerous position, though, just to the side of the Arsenal box. Chaos ahoy!
81 min: Arsenal make a double change, replacing Trossard and Hincapie with Martinelli and Calafiori.
80 min: … and it nearly pays off, Van Den Berg shoveling a shot from the middle of a melee, Ouattara missing the ball from six yards with an air-header. That was a half-chance, though Ouattara had little or no time to react. Goal kick.
79 min: Henderson bustles down the right and crosses low for Damsgaard, who can’t get the ball under control for a shot, but earns a corner off Gabriel. A chance for some more of that sweet chaos.
78 min: The xG at the moment is Brentford 1.09, Arsenal 0.53.
76 min: The atmosphere at the Community Stadium is electric. So much at stake for both sides. Arsenal after that elusive 14th league title, of course, but Brentford fancy some European action next season. Plenty on the line, and three points would be huge.
74 min: The game restarts. As does Odegaard.
73 min: While Odegaard receives some treatment, Brentford make a double change, replacing the scorer Lewis-Potter and Yarmoliuk with Henderson and Damsgaard.
72 min: Odegaard has hurt himself while trying to stop Lewis-Potter’s run. He might have whacked his knee. He stays down. On comes the physio.
GOAL! Brentford 1-1 Arsenal (Lewis-Potter 71)
The corner leads to another of those long Kayode throws from the left. Van den Berg towers to flick on. Lewis-Potter, racing in from the back, can’t miss from six yards, and crashes a header across Raya and into the top left. Power working this time!
Photograph: Adam Davy/PA
70 min: Before the corner can be taken, Saka replaces the goalscorer Madueke.
69 min: Jensen bombs down the middle and feeds Kayode, who sails past Hincapie down the right, then Zubimendi infield, before lashing a shot that’s deflected wide left by Gabriel. This is great fun now.
67 min: Odegaard steals the ball off a snoozing Jensen and races down the right. He finds Rice in the middle. Rice thinks about shooting but tries to tee up Trossard instead. Kayode nips in to clear. Thiago counters, barrelling down the left. He enters the Arsenal box and shoots. Straight at Raya, who saves. It could/should be 0-2, it could/should be 1-1.
65 min: … but that’s a good reaction to falling behind from Brentford, who up until conceding hadn’t turned up for work during this second half.
64 min: … some of that Brentford chaos in the six-yard box causes Raya to flap again. Hincapie heads behind for another corner. The second one’s sent long, and Lewis-Potter is all alone, just past the far stick, six yards out! He must hit the target at the very least, but his powerful downward header flies wide right. Madueke and Lewis-Potter proving, in turn, and in short order, that scoring with a header is less about power, more savvy.
63 min: Brentford look for an instant reply. Kayode flings long from the left. Raya flaps at the near post, but Thiago doesn’t know where the loose ball is, and so can’t poke home. Gabriel slashes out for a corner. From which …
GOAL! Brentford 0-1 Arsenal (Madueke 61)
Hincapie finds space near the left-hand corner flag. He loops a cross into the six-yard box. Madueke rises above Henry and guides a header across a wrong-footed Kelleher and into the left-hand side of the net. Not much power, but that was all about placement!
59 min: Rice works his way down the left and cuts back for Trossard, who dummies and lets the ball roll to Odegaard. Arsenal’s captain has time and space, but takes his shot instantly, and flays it wildly over the bar. A look of high irritation washes over his face. He knows he should have done better.
57 min: Arsenal have enjoyed 80 percent of possession since the restart.
56 min: … Arsenal probe down both flanks, swinging a couple of crosses into the box, but to little real effect. The ball eventually pings out for a goal kick. This is an improved version of Arsenal, though. They’ve really upped the tempo, with Odegaard conducting.
55 min: Trossard dribbles in from the left and takes a whack. Ajer, who has done his fair share of blocking tonight, deflects the shot wide left. And from the corner …
54 min: Jensen is booked for cynically hugging Madueke, who would have rather made good down the right.
52 min: Lewis-Potter advances elegantly down the left and feeds Thiago, who runs into Gabriel. A promising move over. But that’s better from Brentford. “The first half of a match seems an odd time to be nervous,” suggests Ian Copestake. “The last 15 minutes if it’s still 0-0 is usually reserved for that. So in summary, the true angst is yet to come.” Do you mean tonight, or during the run-in as Arsenal edge closer to their holy grail? Or both? Reader, he means both, doesn’t he.
50 min: On the touchline, Keith Andrews theatrically mimes deep breathing, demanding his team calm down. They’ve been seriously on the back foot since the restart, and need that instruction for sure.
48 min: Some pinball in the Brentford box leads to Trossard slamming a shot goalwards. It’s blocked. Arsenal scream handball, but it hit Ajer’s chest. Mikel Arteta has clearly given his charges the half-time what-for, because Arsenal are first to everything now, having taken it up a notch.
47 min: Odegaard is instantly involved, feeding Hincapie down the left. The defender fires a dangerous cross through the Brentford six-yard box. All it needs is a touch, but Gyokeres must have cut his toenails last night, and that’s cost him a poke-home.
46 min: A long pass down the right for Gyokeres to chase. Ajer comes across to intercept and guide the ball back to Kelleher, who clears. Meanwhile here’s Justin Kavanagh on the Brentford manager’s potty mouth (18 min): “Good to see Keith Andrews keeping up Dubliners’ reputation for still flinging the odd f-bomb, despite living abroad. A few years ago at a book launch here in the US, Roddy Doyle was asked by a very earnest American woman why (oh, why?) Irish authors felt the need to pepper their prose with such salty curse words. He groaned long and hard before spitting it out: ‘Ahhhhhh… I don’t (expletive—ing) know!’”
Brentford get the second half started. Arsenal have made a change, sending on their captain Odegaard in place of Eze. “To me, Brentford seem like they’re a markedly better in attack this season than last,” begins Kári Tulinius. “Statistically nothing much has changed: possession average is about the same and goals per game too. However, where they’ve improved a bit is in goals against, and that’s meant that they’ve turned a healthy amount of draws into victories. I wonder if it’s because they feel more dangerous, so opponents don’t fully commit when going forward, making defending easier. Either way, they’re looking good for a European place.”
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Baz on top form today. And as for “Big” Sir Jim … well, Bobbie sings it best.
HALF TIME: Brentford 0-0 Arsenal
Arsenal got better as the half went on, but the early bar was set low. Thiago the closest to scoring, his header spectacularly parried by Raya. Both sides have plenty of room for improvement.
45 min: There will be one additional minute. “I don’t blame Arsenal for being sloppy,” writes Peter Oh. “That’s what happens when you’ve got one eye on the ball and the other on the rearview mirror, where the image of a bounding Erling Haaland is getting bigger and bigger.”
44 min: A long ball down the right nearly releases Ouattara. Raya comes out of his box to batter clear. But this is an opportunity for Kayode to dispatch one of those dangerous long throws into the Arsenal box. In it goes. Lewis-Potter meets it by shanking a shot miles wide right.
42 min: … and the fare on display matches that mood. It’s not a smooth, easy watch. Arsenal especially seem anxious.
40 min: Both managers are prowling their technical areas in irritable style. The first two minutes of this on loop in their heads.
38 min: Madueke dribbles hard into the Brentford box from the right. Henry lays hands on his back. Ever so softly, but hands nonetheless. Madueke opts to go over, looking for the penalty. You can see the logic, but he’s not getting it. VAR confirms the referee’s position.
36 min: … though to be fair, Arsenal are enjoying their best spell in Brentford territory for a while. Their best form of defence tonight may well be attack.
35 min: Madueke shoves Lewis-Potter in the back as the pair contest a high ball on the edge of the Brentford box. Just a free kick, worth nothing more, but it needlessly releases some rare pressure on the home defence, and it’s a manifestation of Arsenal’s increasing frustration.
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