A stunning comeback

In the race to the premier league title for the first time in 19 years, the English premier league leaders Arsenal football club yet again delivered a stunning win on the 4^th of march 2023 mounting a stunning second-half comeback after falling 2 goals down at home to a lowly placed relegation-threatened Bournemouth at home at the Emirates stadium in front of their home fans, increasing the point gap back to 5 points ahead of second-placed Manchester City who had earlier emerged victorious away from home to the best defensive side in the league Newcastle United.

The away team Bournemouth struck early from the first kick of play through Philip Billing, at 9 seconds recording the second fastest English premier league goal in history. Despite the Arsenal football club fielding an in-form side that secured a victory at home to Everton in the previous match, things started really poorly for Mikel Arteta’s side, but then picked themselves up quickly as they asserted dominance in no time testing the Bournemouth goalkeeper Neto a number of times and Neto was having a great day in-between the sticks as he did remarkably well to keep the visitors in the lead.

The game was marred with poor officiating as a series of handball calls in the penalty area of the visiting team were chalked off by the referee and the VAR kept Bournemouth in the lead at half time surviving the first 45 minutes of constant pressure by Arsenal team.

Barely 13 minutes into the second half the visitors struck again in the 57^th minute through a corner kick scored by Marcos Senesi and the hosts were 2 nil down at this moment with defeat starring at them and unable to break down a relentless Bournemouth side. Impressively the supporters in the stadium still cheered their team with passion despite being down to 2 goals in the second half as there was still the belief that things could turn around for good.

This paid off in the 62^nd minute with a strike by Thomas Partey assisted by Smith Rowe, and once again the stadium was more alive as the fans cheered even harder. The Arsenal football coach Arteta decided to make a substitution bringing in Reiss Nelson who hasn’t featured in a lot of matches this season and this was met with lots of online criticisms as they didn’t expect much from him, but then there was an immediate impact in the 70^th minute as Reiss Nelson found Ben white with a perfectly timed cross and the equalizer came after the ball crossed the line despite efforts made by Neto to keep it out.

Bournemouth then sought to get away with a draw placing all men behind the ball and employing delay tactics to wind down time. But now beaming with confidence and belief the relentless arsenal side pressed harder and pressure and consistency paid off as the substitute Reiss Nelson latched on to a corner deflected corner with a thunderous strike from the edge of the box into the far corner of the Net in the 97^th minute 7 minutes into stoppage time sending the Emirates stadium into an unbelievable state completing an unbelievable comeback and restoring the arsenal side 5 points back on top of the table.