Top four in their hands after clear signal of Arsenal intent
Arsenal's Alexandre Lacazette celebrates scoring his sides second goal from a penalty during the Premier League match at the Emirates Stadium, London. Picture: Nick Potts/PA Wire
ALEX LACAZETTE and Thomas Partey scored goals either side of half-time to send Arsenal back into the top four in style. Only Premier league leaders Manchester City compare with Mikel Arteta's men in terms of their run of nine wins from 11 matches and the 28 points they have won in that period.
They dispatched a Leicester side on a four-game unbeaten run of their own and now sit a point ahead of fifth-placed Manchester United with a thumping three matches in hand.
Ending a five-year absence from Champions league football really is in their own hands now, although they play the first of those spare games at home to Liverpool on Wednesday night with everything to play for.
This fixture marked the first of three in six days. And Arsenal started what could be a decisive run with clear intent.
The opening goal came when Gabriel Martinelli curled a 12th-minute corner to the near post and Partey flicked the ball flying past Kasper Schmeichel. The Ghanaian, scoring for only the second time since his £45m signing 20 months ago, was an unlikely scorer, but it was an all too familiar story for Leicester as it marked the 12th time they had conceded from a corner this season.
Partey, the subject of some friendly mocking for his familiar failure to hit a target from distance, then clipped a right foot shot against a post as Leicester struggled to cope with the relentless nature of Arsenal's fast-paced attacks.
Martinelli and Bukayo Saka were electric on either flank and it was only when Aaron Ramsdale made a point blank stop from Harvey Barnes in Leicester's first attack of the match was there a sense Arteta's men might pay for their profligacy.
Ten minutes before half-time and Barnes thought he had beaten Ramsdale with a flicked header from six yards out. This time the save was even better, earning an admiring reaction from Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers as he regrouped from an aborted goal celebration.
A Ben White tackle on James Maddison was also crucial to holding their lead as Leicester finished the first half on top, albeit a goal behind and chasing the game.
Arsenal were back to their best at the start of the second half and only Schmeichel's heroics kept them from doubling their lead.
But the great Danish keeper was finally beaten in the 59th minute when Lacazette won the battle of skill and mind games to fire a penalty into the roof of the net.
The build-up had been overly dramatised by an unnecessarily long VAR check on a blatant goal-saving handball from Cagiar Soyuncu – which kept out what would have been Partey's second headed goal of the match.
On an afternoon when Arsenal used their match programme and pre-match pleasantries to highlight their support and fund-raising activities for victims of the Russian war in Ukraine, they also did their part to briefly take minds away from the atrocities. Some 21 shots and free-flowing football regularly had a sell-out crowd on their feet.
If only life and football were always so reliable.
Ramsdale 7; Cedric 6 White 7, Gabriel 6, Tierney 6; Partey 8, Xhaka 6; Saka 8 (Pepe 85), Odegaard 8, Martinelli 8 (Smith Rowe 78); Lacazette 7 (Nketiah 88).
Leno, Holding, Tavares, Swanson, Lokonga, Elneny.
Schmeichel 7, Ricardo 5 (Justin 61), Amartey 5, Soyuncu 5, Thomas 6, Maddison 7, Mendy 5 (Ndidi 61), Dewsbury-Hall 6, Albrighton 6, Barnes 7, Iheanacho 5 (Daka 74).
Jakupovic, Vestergaard, Choudhury, Tielemans, Perez, Lookman.
Anthony Taylor 5
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