Arsenal comes from behind to overcome Wolves at home and close the gap on fourth place to just one point.
Arsenal trailed until the 82nd minute, when Nicolas Pepe’s first Premier League goal of the season canceled out Hwang Hee-opener.
Wolves got off to a strong start. Within six minutes, Romain Saiss struck the back of the net only to be called offside. But the visitors soon took the lead when Gabriel Magalhaes turned a pass clumsily towards his own goalkeeper from wide in the right-back position.
Hwang pounced, outrunning Aaron Ramsdale to the ball and scored from an acute angle, and the visitors should have extended their lead three minutes later when Daniel Podence freed Raul Jimenez.
Jimenez was clean with only the goalkeeper to beat as he returned to the Emirates Stadium for the first time since fracturing his skull in a collision with David Luiz in November 2020. But his shot went wide.
Despite the miss, the Mexican showed no evidence of having anything on his mind as he led the line.
Max Kilman, a Wolves defender, emerged from the tunnel with both hands up in the air and murmuring a prayer, his thoughts certainly with his family in Ukraine. Kilman, who has a Ukrainian mother, a Russian father, and dual Anglo-Ukrainian citizenship, could be forgiven if his mind was elsewhere. But he was quickly absorbed in the mission of assisting his team in defending their lead.
Midway through the first half, Arsenal got some rhythm and began to threaten going forward. Sa made two rapid saves from Lacazette and sprinted from his line to deny Gabriel Martinelli, who was serving a suspension for a weird red card he received when these clubs faced earlier this month at Molineux.
Lage’s team went into the halftime break with a one-goal lead and were on the verge of adding a second in stoppage time at the end of the first half. Jimenez leapt high over Ben White to connect with a right-wing Podence cross, but his header sailed wide.
Soon after the restart, Hwang came near. Another chance for Podence, this time a feed into the penalty area to Hwang, whose strike nicked Ramsdale’s frame as he spread his frame, rolled casually across goal and inches wide of the far post. Lage bemoaned his team’s failure to score a second goal. ‘It’s difficult to alter when it’s 2-0,’ said the Wolves manager, who lost winger Nelson Semedo to a hamstring injury early in the second half.
They appeared to be holding out until Arteta’s aggressive changes helped to turn the game around.
Arsenal pressed for the winner after Pepe and Eddie Nketiah came on and collaborated for the equalizer.
With a curler, Martin Odegaard hit the crossbar, then Bukayo Saka forced a low save from Sa, but Arsenal recycled the rebound and kept the pressure on.
Pepe slipped a pass to Lacazette, who found the net thanks to Sa’s gloves.