Arsenal march on as Danny Welbeck hits winning goal against Sporting

Sporting 0-1 Arsenal: The visitors proved they have learned how to grind out results, scoring late on through Welbeck to all but guarantee progression to the Round of 32

Danny Welbeck celebrates hitting the winning goal in Lisbon (Reuters)

Fourteen, in case you were wondering. Arsenal’s longest winning run across all competitions stretched to an imposing 14 games under George Graham in 1987, beginning with a 1-0 win over Nottingham Forest thanks to a goal from Alan Smith, and ending just over two months later with a shock loss to Southampton.

This latest victory — a 1-0 win over Sporting so tedious it will have had the neutrals switching over to Qarabag vs Vorskla — takes Unai Emery’s side to within three games of that piece of history. They are just two away from Arsène Wenger’s record run. Crystal Palace and Blackpool are up next, before the potentially season-defining visit of Liverpool.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. “Three matches are a lot of matches,” Emery remarked later. “We are only thinking about our next match against Crystal Palace. And we are happy because we could not impose our game in the first-half, but we were able to improve things and change the result. We need to continue finding these solutions.”

This was a different test for Arsenal. Against Leicester on Monday night they proved they still have an eye for the kind of sumptuous attacking play that characterised the very best Wenger teams. Here, they demonstrated they can slug it out and win ugly also, scoring late on through Danny Welbeck to leave themselves in pole position to qualify for the Europa League knockout stages top of their group.

It wasn’t pretty. But after weathering the best of what Sporting had to throw at them, Arsenal struck late to become the first away side to win at this ground since Barcelona over a year ago.

Their lopsided performance also proved just how exceptionally important Lucas Torreira has become to this team. If Mesut Ozil is Arsenal’s irrepressible master conductor, then Torreira is the orchestra’s unassuming sound guy. Always lingering just out of the spotlight’s glare, darting around in the shadows to keep everything functional, orderly, in time.

Matteo Guendouzi attempts to wrestle back possession (Getty)

The match changed completely when he was thrown on by Emery with half an hour remaining, with his side struggling to get any real foothold in the game. Torreira immediately began setting the rhythm in the middle of the park as Arsenal suddenly grew in confidence. And he even threatened to steal centre stage for himself, when he bent a low free-kick towards goal, drawing a smart save from the impressive Renan Ribeiro.

Instead, he wisely left it to Welbeck to play the front man. The forward took his goal well at the end of a difficult match in Lisbon’s late afternoon sun, in which he was often left isolated and frustrated out wide on the left. But he bided his time and retained the presence of mind to pounce on Sebastian Coates late into the day, latching onto the former Liverpool defender’s botched interception and coolly slotting the ball between Ribeiro’s legs.

Sporting’s manager José Peseiro was apocalyptic. “Welbeck was offside,” he moaned. He wasn’t. “Look at the replay. From the moment of pass Welbeck was offside. And it looked like Aubameyang touched the ball but he did not. If there was VAR tonight we would not have lost this game.”

Danny Welbeck's strike was the difference (Action Images via Reuters)

In his defence, to lose so late into the game was a cruel end for Sporting, who did at least enjoy the better of a dismal first-half starved of both clear-cut chances and entertainment. Former Manchester United man Nani perhaps had the best effort: refraining from his usual indulgence of a slew of utterly superfluous lollipops to belt a fierce drive narrowly over.

Other than that, though, Sporting were left counting on the referee. Sokratis Papastathopoulos — looking unusually sluggish upon his return from an injury picked up on international duty — bundled over Fredy Montero after misjudging a long ball over the top, while a few minutes later Nani went down in the box looking for a cheap penalty. Neither was given.

“The referee made three serious mistakes,” a steadily-reddening Peseiro added. “I accept that referees make mistakes, but those three mistakes were all made against us and it is hard to accept.”

Aaron Ramsey controls the ball while under pressure from Radosav Petrovic (Getty)

Sporting allowed their heads to drop and Arsenal grew in strength after the break. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang did well to dart behind Sporting’s defence only for his casual chip on goal to be clawed away by the impressive Ribeiro, while just moments later Welbeck saw a close range stab at goal deflected wide.

Little matter: within minutes Torreira was thrown on as Arsenal finally seized control of the game. And, with less than fifteen minutes, Welbeck struck to ensure Arsenal keep marching on.