Vitoria 1-1 Arsenal: Shkodran Mustafi's late goal cancelled out as Gunners cling on for Europa League draw

1/23
Malik Ouzia @MalikOuzia_6 November 2019

Arsenal’s winless run extended to four games as Bruno Duarte’s stoppage-time equaliser earned Vitoria a 1-1 Europa League group stage draw at the Estádio D. Afonso Henriques.

Faced with the novelty of a mid-afternoon Wednesday kick-off, the visitors barely fashioned an opening until Shkodran Mustafi nodded home from Nicolas Pepe’s free-kick ten minutes from time, and looked to have stolen an undeserved victory.

But where Pepe had scored late to win the reverse fixture, here it was the Portuguese side who struck, as Duarte’s acrobatic finish levelled things.

With Granit Xhaka deposed, new club captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Mesut Ozil left in London and neither Alexandre Lacazette nor Hector Bellerin involved from the start, Emery was forced to look outside his designated leadership group for a skipper, handing Rob Holding the armband.

The 24-year-old was deployed as part of a back three, with Kieran Tierney and Ainsley Maitland-Niles as wing-backs, and initially it looked as if that system might work as Tierney galloped down the left and curled a teasing ball across the face of goal, just evading Pepe.

However, it was to be one of the only threatening moments of a dour first-half performance, as midfield pair Dani Ceballos and Joe Willock struggled to gain control or link defence with attack.

Instead, it was the hosts who thrice came close to opening the scoring. Their own Pepe rattled the upright with a vicious hit from 25 yards, before former Tottenham youth star Marcus Edwards forced Emiliano Martinez into a decent stop with a similar effort.

Centre-half Edmond Tapsoba was allowed a free run from a set-piece to test Martinez again with a flicked header, as half-time arrived without the Gunners having asked a question of Vitoria stopper Douglas.

Things didn’t get much better after the restart, as Ceballos pulled up sharply chasing Edwards, and soon hobbled off clutching his hamstring, replaced by Matteo Guendouzi.

It took until just after the hour mark for Arsenal to fashion a chance of note as Mustafi headed Pepe’s out-swinging corner over the bar, and, despite the introduction of Lacazette, they barely threatened again until, finally, the same combination produced the opener.

But Duarte struck back, and the result, coupled with a drab performance, will see the pressure on Emery mount once more ahead of a crunch meeting with high-flying Leicester City in the Premier League this weekend.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in