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#2 vs. Crystal Palace – 04/21/2019
By the time late April rolled around, Arsenal had only lost one game at home all season – on the opening day to the defending champions Manchester City – and so it looked almost inevitable that they’d be able to beat struggling Crystal Palace to jump above Tottenham and into 3rd position – putting a 3-point cushion between themselves and fellow top-four contenders Chelsea.
In arguably one of their worst performances of the season though, it wasn’t meant to be. Palace took the lead in the 17th minute through an unlikely source, as Christian Benteke headed home from Luka Milivojevic’s free-kick to score his first goal in over a year.
Slack marking from Arsenal defender Shkodran Mustafi allowed him to get free – but Mustafi’s performance would only get worse from there.
Palace held on until half-time – when Unai Emery switched Konstantinos Mavropanos and Carl Jenkinson for Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Alex Iwobi – and Iwobi soon had an impact, passing to Alexandre Lacazette who then set up Mesut Ozil for an equaliser. But around 15 minutes later, it became clear who Emery should’ve withdrawn during the break.
A long ball over the top should’ve been easy for Mustafi to deal with despite the fact that Wilfried Zaha was chasing him. But inexplicably, the German slowed his run down – perhaps figuring that keeper Bernd Leno would collect the ball – and allowed Zaha to charge past him to slot the ball into the net.
Palace added a third through James McArthur – once again due to slack defending from Arsenal from a set-piece – less than ten minutes later, and although Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored a consolation, his side couldn’t find an equaliser and missed out on some valuable points – largely through their own doing.
