On Sunday afternoon against Burnley, the Emirates stadium saw a most perfect example of how Arsenal can make life ridiculously hard for themselves.
Visitors Burnley have a rotten record away from Turf Moor and eventually went a goal down on 59 minutes, after much Arsenal huffing and puffing, with Shkodran Mustafi heading home his first goal for the Gunners from a Mesut Ozil corner.
While the Clarets creating a few chances themselves, Arsenal were in control and looked likely to see out the game in comfortable fashion.
However, once again Granit Xhaka’s penchant for ridiculous challenges reared it’s ugly (and bloody silly) head, with the Swiss midfielder getting revenge on Steven Defour for an earlier scuffle but jumping in two-footed on the Belgian midfielder.
Xhaka may not have got much of the player, but the intention was clear and the summer-signing was correctly dismissed, via his fifth red card in the league since the start of last season. What a silly chap.
The sending off energised Burnley, who pushed for the equaliser. Although Arsenal also went close again.
Then, early on in the eight minutes of injury time, Francis Coquelin’s rash challenge on Ashley Barnes in the box handed the visitors a chance to take a point from the game.
Andre Gray fired home the resulting penalty with Petr Cech once again failing to repel a spot-kick.
The incident saw Wenger lose the plot on the sidelines, with the Frenchman sent into the tunnel before he shoved the fourth official.
Arsenal’s chance to make good ground on their title rivals looked to have disappeared. However, right at the death, an offside Laurent Koscielny found himself on the end of the dangerously high boot of Ben Mee.
Ref Jon Moss and his linesman missed the offside infringement and awarded the hosts a dramatic penalty, much to the disgust of Burnley boss Sean Dyche.
Alexis Sanchez stepped up and bagged the winner courtesy of the cheekiest on panenkas to seal a dramatic win for the Gunners.
What a game! And what a prime example of Arsenal making things so hard for themselves. Although to be fair to the hosts, they should have been awarded another penalty earlier in the game when Mustafi was tripped inside the Burnley box.
The win sees the Gunners go second, eight points behind Chelsea. As for Burnley, they stay 13th courtesy of their feeble away form.