Bukayo Saka fought until the very end for Arsenal in their dramatic late win over Wolves despite being abandoned by hundreds before his critical action
07:00, 14 Dec 2025Updated 09:43, 14 Dec 2025
Bukayo Saka produced two perfect crosses to give Arsenal a valuable victory in dark moment for table toppers
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Bukayo Saka produced two perfect crosses to give Arsenal a valuable victory in dark moment for table toppers(Image: Julian Finney/Getty Images)
Mikel Arteta expressed perfectly after the game to describe the Arsenal performance in their 2-1 victory over Wolves, “Unacceptable.” A word which was perhaps appropriate for more than just some of the performance seen on the field inside the Emirates Stadium on Saturday night.
There really is no other word for it, and the Gunners got very fortunate with how they eventually claimed all three points. Were it not for the efforts of Bukayo Saka from the first minute to the last, they might as well have kissed goodbye to their control over the title race.
“That's something very positive, but I don't put it down sometimes to, ‘Yeah, resilience and go up now!’” Arteta said when asked about how this was perhaps a game last season, they would not have turned around to win. “It's what happened before; we should have stopped the source before, and that's on us.
“You have to give credit to Wolves and what they've done. I watched the game when they played Stamford Bridge, when they played against Villa and how unlucky they were not to get [anything], so I knew that that wasn't going to be an easy game at all.
“But we made it even harder with what we did in the manner that we conceded the goal, and that's unacceptable.”
That simply did not look like the Arsenal side that tore apart Bayern Munich or battered Tottenham Hotspur. It looked far from a side sitting now five points clear, at least until Manchester City and Aston Villa play, at the top of the Premier League and with a perfect record, so far, in the UEFA Champions League.
While the Gunners were dominant and Wolves had clearly come to park the bus and claim a point, the balance was off. Some players simply went missing.
Eberechi Eze, hauled off at Aston Villa for a poor display on the left, led to calls for him to play solely centrally from now on. Well, he took the right attacking eight role from Odegaard and again found himself walking off the field with little to discuss in terms of a contribution to the game.
Viktor Gyokeres looked lost, once again, in the first half. Runs that were either not found because he was continually crowded or a failure to hold the ball up.
He did improve in the second half, particularly his hold-up play, but still, the impact that Gabriel Jesus had coming on… I cannot help but watch him play in that role and think that there is the Arsenal attack I know.
Gyokeres needs time; he shouldn’t be ruled out, but equally, there needs to be some objectivity about what we’re seeing with our own eyes and what we’re seeing so far is not the level Arsenal need from their number nine, wearing a prolific number 14 shirt, when trying to win the major titles.
While Jesus might not have been the one who had the winning touch, he continues to provide a sense of familiarity and comfort when he enters the fray. His movement, link-up and tenacity are simply captivating and come, Everton next week, I’d like to see him start.
Videos emerged of fans leaving the ground in their droves when Tolu Arokodare scored in the 90th minute. While those who did might not have kept fighting for the club until the very end, Bukayo Saka did.
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Both own goals came from his deliveries into the box, and he could and perhaps should have had more assists. He was the bright spark, everything was coming down his flank, and while Noni Madueke certainly brought the flare in Brugge, Saka reminded everyone why he is Stay Boy!
Arteta was asked whether there was “complacency” in the crowd. Arteta, however, admitted that it works both ways, and they had to be a catalyst for them, just as he hopes they will be for him and his players from the very first minute.
“I don't know,” he replied. “Before Brentford, I called everybody at 7.30, and today was a late kick-off. I forgot to say that.
“But at the end, we have to completely do the game if we want to get that as well. So there's nothing to question to our supporters. It has to come from us.
“In the last minute, everybody was cheering and jumping. Obviously, that's normal and understanding. Hopefully, we can do it from the first minute.”
Kind and understanding, but above all, generous. It should be pointed out that the vast majority of supporters stayed to see Saka’s whipped cross eventually find its way into the net.
Whether those outside the ground jumped for joy or perhaps found out later, after they got one of the many available trains home that ran late into the night. I’m being slightly facetious, and some might have some genuine reasons for leaving, but as seen by the clips at the time, you will find it difficult to convince me this was the case for all who got up and abandoned the team when perhaps they have needed them the most, more than ever this season.
In their stead, they won the game. Certainly, from a personal point of view, I’d like nothing else to put this night into a box, forget it ever happened and move on, but when I put this idea to Arteta, he was still determined, unsurprisingly, to learn from it first before joining me in looking solely to the next game.
“Learn from it and then move on,” he replied. “Yes, and every time you win the Premier League, you should be happy, and you should be conscious of the difficulty of it.
“But we made it even harder for ourselves today, and that's the big lesson that we have to do. When the opponent merits something, that's fine and they did a lot of things to make it difficult for us, but as well the things that are on us, we should make sure that we improve them.”
The early Christmas gift that comes now, if you will, is that for the first time since the week commencing August 25, Arsenal have a clear midweek in order to rest, recover and reset. Arteta even described the impact of having such a lack of training sessions, despite the eye-roll-inducing claims over supposed ‘overtraining’.
“Well, what we have to do now is reset, give them two days that they can decompress a little bit, and then we have a long week that we can prepare,” he explained. “When we don't train, there are things that slowly deteriorate and certain habits that start to deteriorate because you don't train them and use that opportunity to do so.
“Give everybody a boost because we know that the Christmas period is a lot of times undefined and we want to be on top of it.”
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Well, if there was ever a performance to prove the point that the schedule was deteriorating the players’ output, this was it. So let’s be grateful that, come the final whistle, all three points were safely pocketed, and now the team can turn over a fresh slate and look to build up some momentum.
I’ll be sticking around till the very end to see if they do. Will you?
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