Harbinger Of Glory

The equaliser settled Wigan almost as much as it unsettled Arsenal.

For the first few minutes after the restart, neither side seemed particularly interested in doing anything too risky.

Arsenal had already learned that Wigan could punish them if they became too eager, while Wigan, having spent much of the previous twenty minutes chasing the game, were content to let their midfield recover its shape.

Afterall, they couldn’t afford to overcommit against this Arsenal side.

In response to each other, subtle changes began happening all over the pitch.

For Arsenal, Odegaard responded by dropping deeper to involve himself more often, sometimes collecting the ball almost alongside Rice before carrying it forward, while Rice remained a little more conservative than he had been earlier, protecting the space in front of Saliba and Gabriel.

Havertz, on the other hand, began getting more freedom to attack, causing Arsenal to look more like a 4-2-4 rather than the 4-1-2-3 they’d begun the game with.

It gave Arsenal control without giving them the freedom they had enjoyed before the Wigan equaliser.

Every time Odegaard received the ball, Leo seemed to appear somewhere in his vicinity.

He was not following him everywhere, nor was he being asked to man-mark Arsenal’s captain.

Instead, Leo was simply conscious of where Odegaard wanted to receive the next pass, and that was enough for Arsenal to start using his awareness against him.

Odegaard would drift toward him, wait for Leo to step across, and then release the ball into the space that had opened somewhere else.

The first time, Saka received it.

The second time, Martinelli found himself with room to carry forward.

The third time, Odegaard turned toward Leo and then immediately played the ball back to Rice, who switched it toward the opposite flank.

From the viewing room, Piatelli watched it happen again and again and couldn’t help but take note of it.

”They’re moving him.”

When he said that, he looked towards Pirlo, who remained focused on the pitch before the latter shook his head.

”No,” he said after a moment. ”They’re moving everyone around him.”

Piatelli looked at him as if he didn’t get what Pirlo meant, and to that, the former Juventus manager gave a small shrug.

”It’s not really about Leo. They’re trying to make him choose where he wants to be, then using whatever space he leaves.”

He paused as Odegaard received it again.

”When I played, I would have probably gone toward the ball and tried to solve it from there.”

When he said that, a faint smile crossed his face.

”But that was my game.”

Piatelli looked back toward the pitch.

”And this isn’t?”

Without saying anything, Pirlo shook his head, an acknowledgement of how much the game had changed since his playing days.

The way spaces were used had become different, and the speed at which teams moved the ball had changed with them.

Something that had worked perfectly for him might have simply created another problem now, and with that in mind, he tried not to critique Leo too much, especially when the youngster was doing more than well on the pitch.

As the half trailed to an end, Wigan won back, and when Leo saw that, he immediately dropped toward Reyes when the Portuguese midfielder received under pressure.

That small action might have gone unnoticed, but for the keen watchers, the Arsenal players hesitated the moment Leo joined the fray, giving Reyes just enough time to recycle the ball through Femi Seriki in the right back position.

In another sequence, he offered himself to Fletcher when Wigan needed an outlet and twice tracked Martinelli all the way back toward his own penalty area, winning the ball back once.

He was playing well, but Arsenal were making sure that none of it came easily and certainly not on their part.

Then, in the forty-first minute, Leo finally found himself with the sort of space he wanted.

Reyes received between Rice and Odegaard and turned, drawing both players toward him before slipping the ball into Leo’s path.

Leo took his first touch forward and immediately saw Ezra beginning to move down the right.

The pass was there.

It was difficult, but Leo saw it.

He shaped his body and attempted to thread the ball between Rice and Odegaard, trying to bend it around the Norwegian and into Ezra’s run.

The execution was excellent, but the idea not so much.

Despite the ball missing Kiwior and looking like it would settle right with Ezra, it never got to him.

Saliba stepped across and intercepted before Ezra could reach the pass.

And then with a single glance, he also sent a long ball right past the entire midfield and then found Saka, who had dropped to the right midfield and Wigan’s left side of defence.

Leo turned as Saka accelerated into the counter, and for a moment he watched the move develop before Wigan’s midfield reacted with Tiehi moving inwards and giving Whatmough the freedom to step out and meet Saka, forcing him to slow and play the ball back.

The moment Wigan tried to settle, Arsenal attacked again and this time they attacked Wigan’s right side, with Martinelli holding the ball wide while Kiwior pushed beyond him.

Ezra followed the full-back, initially leaving Martinelli one-on-one with Seriki, but the Brazilian checked inside just as Kiwior continued his run.

Ezra had to choose, and he did, deciding to follow Martinelli instead as Kiwior received the ball.

Leo saw it developing and shifted across from midfield to help close the space, but that movement opened the centre for a moment, and Odegaard immediately took that chance.

With Leo out of the loop, Kiwior’s ball found him and with one touch,

Odegaard turned and clipped a pass over the advancing Wigan setup toward Jesus, who had pulled away from Whatmough.

Tilt tried to close him from one side while Whatmough recovered, but Jesus managed to shift the ball onto his right foot and fire before either defender could fully set himself.

The Arsenal fans got off their seats in a split second, waiting for the net to rustle, but Amos reacted brilliantly.

He dropped low and threw out his left hand, getting enough behind the shot to divert it away from the goal.

The ball bounced back toward the edge of the box and without thought, Tiehi arrived first on it and smashed it clear into the stands, sending the Emirates into another wave of groans.

”That is another excellent save from Ben Amos,” the commentator said as the Wigan goalkeeper climbed back to his feet.

”Arsenal have been patient, and eventually they have found that little opening through Jesus.”

”They have,” the co-commentator replied, ”but Wigan are doing enough defensively to keep them from turning these openings into goals. That is the difference at the moment.”

Amos didn’t like to do it, but when he rose to his feet, he couldn’t help but shout at his defenders for letting such a preventable thing unfold, and to that, Whatmough raised a hand in acknowledgement.

Leo was already jogging back into position, wiping rain from his face with the back of his forearm before pointing toward Reyes and then toward the right side of midfield.

The next attack never properly developed.

Saka received wide against Bennet, tried to cut inside and found the Wigan full-back refusing to commit himself.

Rice moved toward him to offer support, but Bennet stayed patient and forced Saka backwards until the winger eventually returned the ball to Ben White.

The Arsenal supporters murmured their frustration, but there was little they could do.

Then the fourth official raised the board, signalling two more minutes of game, and with this Wigan tried one last time to push forward before the break, but the move never pulled through with Arsenal eager to protect the status quo until the referee’s whistle eventually sounded to end the half.

The first half was over, and the scoreboard above the Emirates showed ARSENAL 1–1 WIGAN.

The reaction around the stadium was mixed.

Arsenal had created the better chances after taking the lead and had forced Amos into several important saves, but Wigan had refused to disappear after the setback.

They had absorbed the pressure, found their equaliser and spent the final minutes showing that they were capable of making Arsenal work for every inch.

And the co-commentator summed it up as the players began disappearing toward the tunnel.

”Wigan have had to weather quite a storm since Arsenal went ahead, but they’ve come through it.

And I think the interesting thing now is what happens in that dressing room, because Arsenal will probably feel they should be in front, while Wigan will know they’ve done enough to keep themselves right in the game.”

The main commentator nodded.

”And for all the talk about Wigan’s remarkable start to this season, this is another kind of test altogether. They have been challenged, they’ve fallen behind, and they’ve responded. Now we find out what the second half brings.”

Leo walked toward the tunnel alongside Fletcher and Reyes, and he said very little.

His expression was calm, but his mind couldn’t say the same thing.

He knew he’d played well, being the catalyst even for the goal they had scored, but it just didn’t feel like it!