Arsenal made to work but Guimaraes goal carries champions to comeback win over Leeds

Arsenal's Bruno Guimaraes celebrates scoring his side's second goal.

Premier League: Arsenal 2-1 Leeds 

So, Brighton was just a blip.

Previously unbeaten Leeds made the Premier League champions work for their fifth win of the season, but the best team won.

United lost 5-0 here in their promotion season last year but presented a different level of opposition this time as they took a well-earned second-half lead through Gabriel Gudmundsson.

That did not last long, however, as Mikel Arteta’s men downed Daniel Farke’s hard working team with comeback goals from Riccardo Calafiori and substitute Bruno Guimaraes.

Arsenal were humbled in a three-goal defeat at Brighton in their last match before the international break three weeks ago as their winning start to their title defence was knocked briefly off course.

And there was little to indicate they were ready to bounce back in a match that lacked verve and incident, possibly not helped by the early 12:30 kick-off.

Either way, Arsenal struggled to create against a Leeds side with the best defensive record to date this season.

That took a lot of hard work and organisation on behalf of the visitors, even though there was a spell towards the end of the first half when Leeds looked to be losing their discipline. Busy midfielder Ao Tanaka was booked for wiping out Myles Lewis Skelly and seemed on course for a red card as he continued to put himself about for a while.

Captain Ethan Ampadu received a yellow card for a late tackle on Ben White and then their ever-animated manager Daniel Farke, who had been complaining about almost every decision by the pernickety Paul Tierney, was cautioned on the bench.

That did not detract from the fact Leeds had the better of the first half chances, despite not seeing much of the ball.

The best of the bunch fell to defender Gudmundsson, whose far-post volley was saved by a strong left-hand stop by David Raya just before half-time.

There was nothing the clean sheet king Raya could do to keep out Justin’s 55th-minute goal. 

The Arsenal keeper was as baffled as his fellow defenders by Gudmundsson’s low cross from the left, which worked its way to Justin, who ran into the right-hand side of the penalty area to score Wirth a sweet shot into the roof of the Arsenal net.

Arsenal wobbled, make no mistake, as Leeds looked more than capable of doubling their lead.

The Yorkshire side has not lost any of their previous 11 matches when going ahead, so Arsenal had it all to do. 

And they equalised seven minutes after going behind just as Arteta lined up three substitutes pitch-side. 

Noni Madueke, in for the injured Christos Tzolis, crossed to the far post where white nodded the ball back onto the middle and fellow full-back Calafiori prodded in his fifth goal for the club.

Arteta’s three amigos came on before play could restart and Guimaraes made the most significant impact when he shot Arsenal to victory in the 62nd minute at the end of a brilliant one-touch passing move reminiscent of Arsene Wenger’s side at their free-flowing best.

Arsenal: Raya 8, White 7 (Timber 63), Konsa 7, Gabriel 7, Calafiori 7 (Hincapie 82), Rice 7, Lewis-Skelly 8 (Guimaraes 63), Odegaard 8 (Merino 90), Saka 7, Madueke 6, Havertz 6 (Gyokeres 63).

Leeds: Trafford 6, Bogle 7 (Bahoya 86), Muharemovic 6, Gudmundsson 7, Elvedi 6 (Bijol 86), Justin 8 (Nmecha 79), Tanaka 7 (Wilson 71), Stach 6, Ampadu 6, Okafor 7 (Aaronson 71), Calvert-Lewin 6.

Ref: Paul Tierney 5.