We moved to the top of the Premier League as Kai Havertz’s fourth goal in successive league games sealed a hard-fought win over Brentford.
Declan Rice opened the scoring with a fine header, but an error from the returning Aaron Ramsdale just before half-time allowed Bees striker Yoane Wissa to divert his clearance into our net to level the scores.
Our keeper redeemed himself with two great saves in the second half to keep us level, before Havertz popped up with five minutes remaining to net the strike that sent us back to the division’s summit after eight successive domestic victories.
Declan does it again
Having scored 21 times in our previous four league matches, we were quickly on the look for number 22, and just two minutes in Ivan Toney had to nudge a wicked Rice corner off his goalline to avoid suffering a quick concession.
But given our razor-sharp form in front of goal, it always looked like we would soon find the net and that proved to be the case after 18 minutes.
Ben White found Bukayo Saka on the right flank, who returned it to the full-back. He had ample time to put a pinpoint delivery into the area where Rice had got in front of Mads Roerslev to glance a fine header past Mark Flekken and net his sixth goal of the campaign - the best return of his career.
Filled with confidence, our attack was purring and were soon carving out more chances. Havertz shot straight at Flekken after some neat footwork from Martin Odegaard, and with 10 minutes of the half remaining the German was sent one-on-on with the keeper and dinked the ball past him, but agonisingly wide of the far post.
Shock equaliser
Saka then drilled an attempt over the bar as we looked to double our lead, but in first-half stoppage-time, we suffered an unlikely setback.
There seemed little danger when Gabriel played the ball was played back to Ramsdale, but he dallied and was closed down by Wissa who blocked the clearance and saw it deflect into the net, to score for the third successive game and hand the visitors a shock equaliser.
After the interval our shot-stopper came to the rescue though. Toney tried to catch him out off his line from 40 yards with an audacious attempt and just as it looked to be sneaking over Ramsdale, he managed to claw it out of the sky and away for a corner.
But the atmosphere inside Emirates Stadium was rocking as our supporters drove our players forward and we nearly conjured up the all-important second goal when Gabriel showed his prowess from a corner to head goalwards but saw it scrambled off the line by a couple of Bees.
Havertz wins it
Having lost seven of their last eight Premier League away games Thomas Frank’s team seemed desperate to grab a point and tried to eat up as much time as possible by taking their time over throw-ins and set-pieces, and they nearly managed to spring another surprise with 20 minutes remaining when Nathan Collins found himself in an advanced position and headed towards the top corner but Ramsdale again produced heroics to acrobatically tip it over.
The game was on a knife edge and Rice came so close to grabbing his second of the evening when after a corner was cleared back to Odegaard he teed up the England man who saw a first-time effort ping off the top corner of the woodwork, but eventually our pressure told with five minutes to go.
Once again White was in the thick of the action again, this time linking up with Odegaard before dinking a cross into the box and this time it was Havertz who powered it past Flekken to score yet again and give the Gooners in attendance something to celebrate for their efforts.
We then saw out nine minutes of stoppage time to secure our third win of the campaign over Brentford, and move to the division’s summit ahead of Liverpool’s game with Manchester City on Sunday afternoon.
Facts and stats
We are only the fourth side to win each of their first eight Premier League games of a calendar year; the previous three all went on to win the title that year (Man Utd in 2009, Liverpool in 2020, Man City in 2021).
Brentford have lost 13 of their last 17 Premier League games (W3 D1), the most defeats any side has suffered in the division since the first match in this spell on November 12th.
We have scored 70 goals in our 28 Premier League games this season, the earliest into a league campaign they have scored 70+ goals since 1963/64 (27th game).
We have won eight consecutive Premier League games for the first time since April 2015 under Arsène Wenger.
Kai Havertz has scored in four consecutive Premier League appearances, the best run of his career in the competition, netting as many goals in this run (4) as his previous 32 league matches beforehand.
In his 232nd Premier League appearance, Declan Rice scored in back-to-back games in the competition for the very first time. He has seven Premier League goals (3) and assists (4) in 2024, as many as he had in the whole of 2023 (6 goals, 1 assist).
In his 133rd Premier League appearance, Ben White has provided two assists in the same game for the first time, and was the first Arsenal defender to assist twice in a single match in the competition since Héctor Bellerin v Sheffield United in October 2020.
Yoane Wissa has scored in three consecutive Premier League appearances for the first time in his career. The Brentford striker has now scored exactly seven goals in all three of his Premier League seasons.
What's next
We're back in action at Emirates Stadium in just three days when we aim to overturn a 1-0 first-leg deficit against Porto in the Champions League round of 16. We then have two weekends off before we're back in action, when we face fellow title rivals Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday, March 31.
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