Were we just lucky that Leeds didn’t score – or is it a positive for the Arsenal defence? | OneFootball

All Arsenal fans were feeling trepidation ahead of tonight’s game at Leeds and for some it may come as a relief that we came away with a point, especially as we played most of the second half with ten men.

Considering Marcelo Bielsa’s side had 24 shots on our goal and hit the woodwork 3 times we could consider we were lucky to get any result, but then again Bukayo Saka had a one-on-one that could have won us the match towards the end, so maybe we were unlucky as well?

One person who was not sure how to feel after the game was Hector Bellerin, who expressd his thoughts very eloquently on Arsenal.com: “We have loads of mixed feelings about the game,”

“As a football players, being happy with a draw doesn’t really resonate with me. It doesn’t even matter what the circumstances are or if you’re down to 10 men, I’m someone that always wants to win especially when we were able to in some situations.

“I think the game at the end was defined by small margins as they hit the post a couple of times, there were a few decent corners towards the end that we didn’t make use of. In these kinds of games, those are the chances that you need to take.

“At the end of the day, we looked solid at the back and we demonstrated that we can play with 10 men and even against a team like Leeds, who are a team that don’t get tired and go at you over 95 minutes. We also managed to keep them at bay and we need to take those positives.

“As a footballer, I feel like even with 10 men I still want to win. I don’t want to approach the game with a mindset that means we have an excuse not to win this game.”

“A lot of people don’t want to talk about luck but sometimes it comes down to that, to training, to practice, it comes down to being inspired and making the right decision in the game,” he said.

“Football is not black and white, there are so many things that happen on that football pitch, so many things that condition the way you play and the decisions you make.

‘Sometimes we made the right decisions, sometimes we didn’t. That’s why football’s so beautiful and so unpredictable at the same time. If every time there was a striker that was one-on-one against a keeper and scored, it would be boring.

“It’s just about working the way that we are. We have the right culture at the club and the right approach now, and I think we just need to keep the results coming, build our confidence and believe in what the manager wants from us.”

So it was a very interesting game, whether we were lucky or unlucky, and it is also a positive that we kept a clean sheet. What is definitely NOT a positive is that we have scored a goal from open play in nearly 8 hours!

How do you view this result tonight?