Arsenal dropped points from a winning position for the third time in five Premier League games, squandering a 2-0 lead at Wolves to deal their title hopes a major blow.
What should have been a night for Arsenal to consolidate their lead at the top of the Premier League table instead turned into a nightmare.
Mikel Arteta’s side were 2-0 up and cruising (on the scoresheet, at least) away to bottom-of-the-table Wolverhampton Wanderers. They then contrived to collapse spectacularly, throwing away that two-goal advantage to draw 2-2, surrendering not just points, but serious momentum in the title race.
It was the first time Arsenal had failed to win a Premier League away match in which they’d led by two goals since April 2023 at West Ham, ending an 18-game winning run on the road when two goals ahead in the league.
There were plenty of similarities between those two matches. In both, Arsenal scored early in games they were strong favourites to win. In both, after scoring it felt as though they should have run away with the game. Anything other than a comfortable victory would have been a shock.
But that’s what happened on Wednesday night at Molineux, even after Piero Hincapié’s first goal for the club made it 2-0 on the night. At that point, Arsenal had a 98.1% chance of going on to win the match, according to the Opta supercomputer.
Arsenal had not exactly been confident and assured prior to going two goals up. But they’d managed to keep Wolves at arm’s length, limiting them to a single shot in the first half and none on target. Their second goal, you’d have thought, should have been the confidence booster needed to go onto win the game comfortably.
But instead, Arsenal retreated. Hugo Bueno’s stunning strike only ratcheted up the tension, with Arsenal desperate to cling on rather than reassert themselves.
The numbers after they went 2-0 up in the 56th minute show how much they went into their shell, unable to keep control of the game.
Arsenal managed just a further two shots in the contest, only had marginally more possession (51% to 49%), completed a lower percentage of their passes and generally played down to the level of a side propping up the table.
Overall, their second-half passing accuracy of 75.1% was their fourth lowest in a Premier League game this season; the other three games came against significantly stronger opposition in Manchester United, Bournemouth and Tottenham.
“It was one after the other, to be fair,” Arteta said. “It was one moment after another moment after another moment. So, even though we scored the second goal, we never got a grip and dominance of the game.”
David Raya’s first-half pass map compared to his second-half one shows just how much Arsenal felt nervous and panicked, with the goalkeeper launching most of his passes downfield in the second period:
Were Arsenal unlucky not to win? Perhaps. Wolves scored with their only two shots on target. One was a stunner from distance. The second, finished by Tom Edozie, came from a calamitous mix-up between Raya and Gabriel Magalhães. Wolves’ five shots amounted to just 0.29 expected goals.
But when you consistently play on the margins, you become susceptible to variance. You invite pressure. You make yourself vulnerable to ‘worldies’ and mistakes. In short, you can get yourself “footballed”.
Arsenal have now won just two of their last seven Premier League games. In that stretch, they have surrendered leads against Manchester United, Brentford and Wolves.
Only Crystal Palace and West Ham (both eight) have dropped more points from winning positions in 2026 than Arsenal (seven). They have failed to win from a leading position in three of their last five league games (W2 D2 L1).
Earlier in the season, Arsenal had been excellent at converting leads into wins. Before the defeat to United in January, the Gunners had scored first in 13 league matches and won every single one.
That authority has evaporated as nerves and pressure have set in. The league leaders are carrying every year of their 22-year title wait on their shoulders. You can see it in the players. You can see it in Arteta.
This was the first time in Premier League history that a team starting the day bottom avoided defeat to the team starting the day top despite trailing by two or more goals. For an Arsenal squad this deep and this talented, that concession borders on unforgivable.
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From 98% Win Probability to Calamity: Arsenal Slip-Up at Wolves Suggests Gunners Feeling the Pressure Again Opta Analyst.
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