Bruno Guimaraes
Bruno Guimaraes
Some goals are remembered for the finish. Others are remembered for the few seconds before them, when a match is still level and the next touch will decide whether it stays that way. A save at one end does not settle anything. It only resets the question.
The best answers arrive before the crowd has sat down again. A pass into feet, a lay-off, a shot that does not need a second look. Those moves feel simple afterwards. In the moment they are the difference between a scare and a lead.
Supporters tend to know which one they will vote for. It is rarely the neatest goal of the month. It is the one that changed the temperature of an afternoon, and did it in a hurry.
Bruno Guimaraes has won the Emirates Goal of the Month award for September for his strike at the Stadium of Light. Gabriel picked out Declan Rice with an incisive pass, the England midfielder laid the ball off, and Guimaraes rifled an emphatic shot into the roof of Sunderland’s net to put Arsenal ahead.
The timing is the part that sticks. The former Newcastle midfielder scored just 121 seconds after David Raya had denied Sunderland the lead with a magnificent penalty save at the other end. That stop later won the Premier League’s Save of the Month. One end kept Arsenal level. The other put them in front before the game had settled.
He took the fan vote with 43 per cent, well clear of the rest. A team goal finished by Martin Odegaard against Chelsea had 19 per cent. Max Dowman’s solo stunner against Ipswich Town came third with 15 per cent. The gap is the story of the award as much as the strike itself. It was not a split decision.
Strikes from central midfield have been an early theme in this season’s voting. Guimaraes joins Kyra Cooney-Cross on the list of winners, after her thunderbolt against Charlton Athletic in August. Different teams, same idea: a midfielder arriving on the edge of the box and hitting one that does not come back down until it is in the net.
The Sunderland goal had the pass, the lay-off and the finish, all inside two minutes of a save that could have sent the afternoon the other way. That is why it took September.