Arsenal 3 Guimaraes 2: Pepe spares Emery’s blushes with two brilliant late goals as Arsenal sneak past minnows
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NICOLAS PEPE rescued Unai Emery from a social media meltdown with two stunning late free-kicks.
Emery was staring down the barrel of the mother of all inquisitions when he sent on £72million Pepe as a desperate last throw of the Arsenal dice.
And the club’s record signing saved his manager’s bacon with a magnificent display of dead-ball wizardry.
Pepe had only been on the pitch five minutes when he whipped an unstoppable 25-yard effort over the wall and into the far corner to haul his new team-mates back into Europa League contention.
But he was not finished there and when Matteo Guendouzi was brought down on the edge of the area deep into stoppage time, Pepe repeated the trick to send the Emirates crazy.
And how Emery needed that late magic to change the Arsenal narrative after another uncomfortable night.
Because until Pepe's intervention, it looked for all the world as though this match was going to be overshadowed by the absence of the man being paid seventy grand a day to sit on his backside.
Left out of the squad for the fifth game in a row, Mesut Ozil had virtually declared open war on his manager when he Tweeted ‘You make me laugh…’ on the eve of this game.
More than 95,000 fans liked that none-too subtle message and when confirmation of Ozil’s continued absence was confirmed an hour before kick-off, social media lost its collective s***.
So as he kicked back in his North London mansion with his beauty queen wife, the prospect of missing a Europa League group game against a team of Portuguese unknowns suddenly wouldn’t have seemed quite so bad.
Particularly as it meant he was not going to be blamed for his team’s second underwhelming display in the space of four days.
And even Pepe’s magnificent late intervention has only papered over the cracks of a club divided by the rift between the manager and its star player.
Vitoria arrived at the Emirates bottom of Group F with no points and no goals from their first two games against Standard Liege and Eintracht Frankfurt.
And having been knocked out of the Portuguese Cup by third division opposition at the weekend, their prospects weren’t exactly looking healthy.
But any suggestions that they were going to be sacrificial lambs to the slaughter were quickly dispelled when Emiliano Martinez was forced into a sharp low save by Andre Almeira.
Yet Arsenal failed to heed those early warning signals and were stunned to find themselves behind after just nine minutes.
And to add insult to injury, it was former Spurs prospect Marcus Edwards who twisted the knife with his first goal since his recent move to Portugal.
The young North Londoner was dubbed "mini Messi" by Mauricio Pochettino when he made his senior debut three years ago.
But he was never able to live up to that ridiculous comparison and managed just ten minutes of first team action before being released by Tottenham in the summer.
That was just the slap in the face sloppy Arsenal required and when Gabriel Martinelli headed in from Kieran Tierney’s 32nd minute cross it seemed they were firmly back on course.
But they continued to leave the door wide open at the back and just four minutes after levelling were punished on the counter attack once again.
Ainsley Maitland-Niles was caught loitering in possession by Davidson and when his low shot came back off the post, Bruno Duarte was left unchallenged to smash home the rebound.
Emery clearly had not prepared for such a setback against the fourth best team from arguably the eighth best league in Europe.
After accusing the supporters of having short memories in the build-up to this game he is clearly starting to feel the heat.
And his claim to have made the team more competitive than the one he inherited from Arsene Wenger has certainly divided opinion among a tetchy fan-base which loves nothing more than a red on red argument.
Even the half-time introduction of Dani Ceballos and Matteo Guendouzi could not provide the spark of urgency missing from this curiously off-key performance.
Emile Smith Rowe missed a decent chance to haul the Gunners back into the game and Shkodran Mustafi glanced a header narrowly wide.
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Vitoria defender Victor Garcia was lucky not to see red for putting the nut in on Lacazette but it was only after the Frenchman had been replaced by £72million Pepe that Arsenal finally came to life.
Win in Guimaraes in two weeks’ time and Arsenal will qualify for the next round of Europa League with two games to spare.
Maybe Ozil might even get a game then. But don’t hold your breath.
