Leicester 1-3 Arsenal: Three Things We Learned

In another dramatic afternoon of Premier League football, Leicester City surrendered an early 1-0 lead before falling to a 3-1 loss at the hands of Arsenal at the King Power Stadium. The visitors persevered in the face of Youri Tielemans’ opener as David Luiz, Alexandre Lacazette and Nicolas Pepe scored the goals necessary to hand the Gunners all three points.

The Arteta way

Despite many believing that Arsenal would cave in on themselves after the first few minutes, Mikel Arteta didn’t allow that to happen. He’s clearly trying to implement an entirely new mindset within his squad at the Emirates, and right now, it’s showing. The consistency they need to challenge for the top six or four is still lacking, and they need to string wins together if they’re serious about mounting such a challenge, but few can deny the improvements they’ve been able to make under Arteta’s leadership thus far.

Broken Leicester?

Between multiple injuries and a squad full of players who look absolutely knackered, the wheels may be starting to fall off for Leicester for the second straight season. They’re out of the Europa League, the top four isn’t guaranteed and they just seemed to give up against Arsenal yesterday. Brendan Rodgers has got a strong stomach and he’ll do everything in his power to make sure lightning doesn’t strike twice, but that’s not really how this division works. Every game is tough and if teams can smell blood in the water, they’ll take advantage of it.

Top four shift

Leicester are still priced as the fourth favourites to finish in the top four of this season’s Premier League with odds of 1/2 per 888sport. Arsenal, on the other hand, are actually the 10th favourites with distant odds of 20/1. We aren’t here to try and claim that Arsenal are suddenly the big bad wolves of the Premier League because that just isn’t the case. Still, a win like this shouldn’t go unrecognised, and the work Arteta has done to change the core of this team shouldn’t be undervalued either. The next few months are going to be very interesting – and Arsenal will be at the forefront of that.

Match Report

Leicester: Schmeichel (6), Thomas (6.5), Soyuncu (6.5), Evans (5.5), Castagne (6), Barnes (6), Tielemans (7), Ndidi (7), Pereira (6), Vardy (6.5), Iheanacho (6), Albrighton (7), Under (6), Amartey (6)

Arsenal: Leno (6), Soares (6.5), Luiz (8), Mari (6.5), Tierney (7), Elneny (6.5), Xhaka (7), Pepe (7.5), Smith Rowe (6), Willian (8), Lacazette (7.5), Odegaard (6.5), Partey (6.5), Aubameyang (6)

Referee: Paul Tierney

Goals: Tielemans :: Luiz, Lacazette, Pepe

Yellow Cards: Thomas, Tielemans, Tierney

Red Cards: N/A