Arsenal win and take 5 point lead over City
Arsenal’s Martin Odegaard of Norway celebrates after scoring against Wolverhampton on Saturday, Nov. 12, 2022 (Nigel French/PA via AP)
Wolverhampton -#Arsenal -Played on 11/ 12/2022
Heading into a six-week break in the Premier League for the World Cup, there are plenty of interesting stories to come for the second half of the campaign.
Arsenal have a five-point lead and are arguably Manchester City’s biggest challenger for the title.
Newcastle looks more and more like a team with enough quality to sneak into the Champions League.
Graham Potter and Frank Lampard, meanwhile, would settle for keeping their jobs after the season at Chelsea and Everton.
The last match date before the six-week break included yet another win for Arsenal, who took advantage of City’s surprise 2-1 loss at home to Brentford. The Gunners beat Wolverhampton 2-0 to take what is their biggest lead in the league so far.
Goals from Norway’s Martin Odegaard in the 55th and 75th minutes gave Arsenal their 12th win in 14 games. The only points that Spaniard Mikel Arteta’s side have let slip before Christmas came in a loss to Manchester United and a draw at Southampton.
Few would have predicted such a good performance from the team.
While the Arsenal players kept up their intensity at Molineux, the City stars, including Erling Haaland, looked uncharacteristically out of touch at the Etihad Stadium.
Ivan Toney reacted to his exclusion from the England World Cup squad by scoring the first goal after 16 minutes and the decisive goal in the eighth minute of injury time. Phil Fodden had leveled for the Citizens, who are two points above third-place Newcastle after a 1-0 win over a crisis-ridden Chelsea.