WHAT HAPPENED
Henrikh Mkhitaryan made his debut but ended up on the losing side as we let a lead slip in South Wales.
It was all going well enough when Nacho Monreal continued his purple patch with a predatory finish from Mesut Ozil’s sumptuous diagonal cross.
It was Monreal’s fourth of the season and his second in three games.
But we only led for a minute. Alfie Mawson stole possession and slipped a pass through for Sam Clucas, who applied a calm finish past Petr Cech.
The wait for Cech’s 200th clean sheet goes on and his day got a lot worse when he failed to deal with a backpass from Shkodran Mustafi.
The goalkeeper tried to clear but could only scuff the ball to Jordan Ayew - and he rolled it into the net.
In fairness to Swansea, they had other chances to hurt us.
Clucas almost converted a Nathan Dyer cross, Mohamed Elneny had to make a perfect sliding challenge to deny the same man in front of goal and Mawson curled a shot just wide.
At the other end Lukasz Fabianski - once an Arsenal FA Cup hero - pulled off a fine save to deny Alex Iwobi.
We had the upper hand in the second half until Cech’s moment to forget, just seconds after Mkhitaryan came on for Elneny.
But our search for an equaliser never got going, and Swansea killed off the game when Clucas converted from close range following Ayew’s fine run.
WHAT IT MEANS
This defeat means we stay in sixth place in the Premier League - one place and two points behind Tottenham having played a game more.
WHAT’S NEXT
We welcome Everton to Emirates Stadium on Saturday, and then it’s the north London derby against Tottenham at Wembley.
MICKI WATCH
Henrikh Mkhitaryan made his debut following his move from Manchester United. These were his key moments:
60 mins - Replaces Elneny and takes up a position in central midfield alongside Aaron Ramsey
74 mins - Climbs to head goalwards but his effort is straight at Fabianski - and the flag is up anyway
79 mins - Ramsey’s backheel finds Mkhitaryan in the box and his low cross eludes Olivier Giroud
DID YOU KNOW?
Nacho Monreal scored his fourth goal of the season, after netting just once in his previous five top-flight campaigns. Here’s some more standout stats from our game at Swansea:
- Carlos Carvalhal is the seventh different Swansea manager that Arsene Wenger has faced in the Premier League, in what is the 14th meeting
- We have lost two of our last 34 Premier League games against the side starting that day bottom of the table (W27 D6), losing 3-4 at Blackburn in September 2011
- We have won three of our 13 Premier League away games this season. The last time we’ve won as few on the road this far into a season was 2005/06
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