Chapter 553: Breach In The Defense!

Dawson returned to the technical area still shaking his head.

He had spent the last minute arguing with the fourth official, trying to understand how a quick free kick could be taken away after the referee had allowed the restart to happen and eventually he had walked away still as confused as he came.

As he approached his managerial box, Nolan immediately came over.

"What did he say?"

Dawson looked at him.

Then he shook his head.

"Don’t bother."

Nolan raised his eyebrows but let it go.

After that, the two men turned back toward the pitch where the match had already moved on.

Leo was at the centre of Wigan’s defensive shape, monitoring the ongoing proceedings when he spotted something.

"Cover Tiehi," he called, and immediately Tiehi moved across to block whatever Leo had instructed.

Leo, on the other hand, did the opposite.

He stepped toward the passing lane into Odegaard, cutting off the Norwegian’s route while Tiehi held his position behind him, causing Odegaard to get caught between them.

With no clean route forward, the attacking midfielder turned and then sent the ball backwards, forcing the play to restart, but as they tried, they met the same fate again, where this time, Joe Bennet inverted to block Odegaard’s pass into Bukayo Saka before the winger could get it.

It happened repeatedly.

For the next ten minutes, Wigan’s shape forced Arsenal to recycle possession more often than they wanted.

They could still move the ball, but they simply could not move it where they wanted.

Eventually, Arsenal changed the question they had been asking.

After a few words and hand signals by Arteta on the bench, Gabriel began stepping forward from the back while Declan Rice dropped into the space he left behind.

It gave Arsenal another body higher up the pitch and allowed their full-backs to push on without leaving the midfield completely exposed.

Then from there, the crosses started.

The first one sailed beyond everyone, and the following one was headed away.

The third was blocked before it could properly enter the danger area, but the takeaway was that Arsenal were getting closer.

Similar scenes unfolded until, in one situation, Havertz gave them another route.

He drifted across the box and deliberately pulled Whatmough with him.

The German spotted the cross and pretended to dash inward, causing Whatmough to move with him, and that left Tilt isolated.

Havertz never wanted the ball.

He wanted the defender, and it worked.

Before long, Gabriel Magalhães arrived in the space that had opened behind them.

The Brazilian met the cross first time and got his head to it, trying to thunder it past the Wigan keeper, but to his dismay and annoyance, Ben Amos reacted sharply, dropping low and getting both hands behind the effort before pushing it away.

"Oh, that was close," the commentary came in, "but it’s not over yet! Martinelli gets on the rebound!"

And true to his words, Martinelli received on the left, cut inside and shifted the ball onto his right.

And then without a hint of hesitation, he drove toward the near side where Amos got down again, and this time, he turned the shot behind, sending it rolling out for a corner.

The Arsenal supporters applauded again and by then Dawson was already moving toward the edge of his technical area.

"Whatmough!" he called loudly enough for the centre-back to turn.

"Stay compact with Tilt."

Dawson then pointed toward the box.

"And don’t follow the decoy. If Havertz moves away, let him go. Femi Seriki or Tiehi can cover."

Whatmough nodded, and it was only then that Dawson stepped back.

As Arsenal went about their corner kick routine, Leo dropped into the box.

All around him and his mates, the Arsenal players gathered.

Their two centre-backs joined in on the action, but they didn’t look the least vulnerable because if they could put the ball into the back of the net, they wouldn’t need to worry about any break for Wigan, and they were keen on making just that happen.

"Arsenal have found a different way into this Wigan penalty area," the commentator said. "They’ve stopped trying to force the middle quite so much and are beginning to test Wigan in the air."

Leo kept his eyes on all the proceedings, filling in right where he expected the ball to come, but with momentum, Declan Rice came through the ball and curved it towards the far post instead.

Leo tracked it but then lost it as the ball sailed over him.

With Declan’s ball rendering his position useless, Leo tried his hardest to move away, but he met bodies instead and before he could think anything else, Gabriel Magalhães attacked it.

"GABRIEL!" the commentator roared as the Brazilian met the ball with his forehead and sent it back across goal.

Amos immediately began scrambling across his line, his feet moving quickly while his eyes never left the ball.

"Dangerous!" he thought, but before he could form another, Gabriel Jesus appeared at the far side and rose.

Seeing this, Ben Amos tensed and then, right as Gabriel Jesus met the ball, Amos threw himself across.

The ball looked certain to rustle the back of the net, but then a hand appeared and palmed the ball away, sending it back into a sea of bodies.

The Emirates gasped, seeing Amos push the ball, only for it to drop loose and go as far as the inside of the six-yard box.

And there, Saka reacted quickly and pounced at the ball.

The Arsenal winger knew a second more and he’d lose the ball, and so without thinking, he lunged toward it and stabbed the rebound into the empty net.

"IT’S SAKAAAA!" the commentary got on it, but before they could finish their words, the Emirates erupted.

"GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLL!"

"It’s Bukayo Saka!" the commentary came through again.

Saka rose to his feet as the noise swallowed everything around him and his teammates sprinted towards him.

The commentary continued beneath the celebrations, but it was hard to get anything into the mic with the noise inside the stadium.

"Arsenal take the lead! After Wigan thought they had taken the lead earlier, Arsenal have finally broken through! Saka was quickest to the rebound, and the home side have their advantage!"

While the Arsenal players celebrated, the giant screens showed the Wigan players instead.

It circled them as one by one, they began walking back toward their positions, but Leo got the brunt of it as the camera stayed on him and watched him turn away from his own penalty area.

He lifted his arm and used the space between his shoulder and upper arm to wipe the rain from his face, but with the water already soaked through his hair, it kept falling down his face.

Behind him, Odegaard finally beckoned his teammates back, and with that, the Arsenal players slowly separated.

They walked past the Wigan players waiting for the restart, their celebrations already beginning to settle while the fans refused to let that be the reason for them calming down.

"Wigan have to be disappointed with that," the co-commentator said on the broadcast.

"Amos has made an excellent save, but when the second ball drops like that, someone has to react. And in the end, that someone was an Arsenal player instead!"

The main commentator nodded.

"They were very close to surviving it, and now comes the interesting part."

"We know what Wigan can do when they’re ahead. The question is what Wigan can do when they’re behind."

The main commentator paused.

"And that is something we haven’t seen much of this season."

"Exactly. In fourteen league matches, Wigan have led in eleven of them. They’ve only had to come from behind three times, with the only serious one among those being their comeback against Wolves!"

"Now, thought, they have another fight on their hands."

Fletcher finally collected the ball from Reyes and then carried it toward the centre circle as the rest of the Wigan players stood behind him.

After that, he watched the referee beckon the Arsenal players to get into their positions until eventually, the whistle came through again, and this time, Arsenal looked much more settled.

Their attacking urgency dropped slightly now that they had what they wanted.

Instead, their defensive shape became much more disciplined.

Every Wigan player seemed to have someone nearby, and that meant that there wasn’t really anyone left to attack the gaps that came from man-marking to such a tee.

Wigan tried to work around them, but it was hard when you had an Arsenal shirt hounding your every step.

The home side forced Wigan to move the ball sideways, then waited for the mistake, which never quite came because of how well Wigan handled the ball, but neither did the clear chance.

The minutes passed, rolling forward like a domino, and through those minutes, Wigan continued having the ball in promising areas, but too many of their efforts ended before Raya had to make a serious save.

"Wigan are seeing plenty of possession," the commentator said as the clock approached thirty-five minutes, "but possession is not the same thing as threatening the goal."

The co-commentator nodded.

"They’ve had shots, certainly, but Raya hasn’t been seriously tested since that disallowed goal. Arsenal are making the final pass extremely difficult."