Max Dowman’s late heroics against Everton could prove a defining Arsenal moment as the season reaches a decisive point across all competitions.
The games are coming so thick and fast now, it’s difficult to keep up. What’s true at 1pm the afternoon I sit down to write for you often ends up rendered obsolete by the time I’ve had my dinner the same day. And so it will likely prove with this piece, as it comes to you in the hours before/after our last 16 Champions League clash with Bayer Leverkusen.
That being said, I think we can say without fear of contradiction, Arsenal had a bit of a moment on Saturday evening, a Max Dowman sized moment. Maybe, to quote Alan Smith, the moment of the season – obviously, the jury’s out on that for the next couple of months. Clearly, though, this was the moment a special, special talent introduced himself to English football at large and we should absolutely recognise it.
Not content with being the best player, by a distance, on the pitch in a team full of internationals at Mansfield a week ago, Dowman was brought on with 15 minutes left for Arsenal to try and break down a resolute Everton side. As he came onto the pitch, watching on the TV, I said to Jo “Well, at least he’ll play without fear”. And… er, that he did!
I want to be clear about that, by the way. I don’t think Arsenal were necessarily playing fearfully. I think we’d actually played pretty well throughout, but were just lacking a bit of spark to break down an Everton team who had given as good as they’d got in the first half, before settling into that Moyes shape that is so difficult to break down. When the passing isn’t quite working, principally because William Saliba has found himself playing as a de facto playmaker, you need a game breaker.
Enter Federer Dowman.
David Raya standing on the ball in the 90th minute may have been giving all of us palpitations as we were desperately seeking the goal to win us the game, but in him doing so and getting out via a couple of risky passes, before we sent the ball long down the right to Mosquera, we had at least dragged some blue shirts up the pitch. Which meant that that when the ball went out for a throw in on our right, rather than stay tight to Dowman, Mykolenko returned to his post to defend Mosquera’s throw. A small, but critical error.
Mosquera’s throw in is short, back to Dowman. He takes a touch to set himself and then detonates a vicious, whipped ICBM of a cross towards the back post. The hitherto exemplary Jordan Pickford comes to punch and misses it, just, the ball rebounding off Piero Hincapie – before you have time to ask yourself what he’s doing up there – and Viktor Gyokeres is clearly going to be first to the ball, tapping it into the empty net, sparking wild celebrations – albeit celebrations in our flat that are tinged with a little “Let’s wait for the VAR check before we go completely mad, shall we?”
The check is relatively quick, albeit not quite as quick as the one which dismissed what looked like a clear first half penalty (not just me, even Dermot Gallagher AND Jamie Redknapp thought so) on Kai Havertz, put clear after an excellent Eze pass, in the first half. It’s a goal, we’ve done it.
I have to tell you, having got the goal, I found the initial five minutes of injury time perhaps even worse than the last five minutes of normal time when it was 0-0. I was on the verge of tears, half turned away from the television as if to shield myself from the dagger blow which was clearly about to be inflicted on me.
And then Jordan Pickford came up for that corner.
As Wayne Campbell said in the 1992 film Wayne’s World, “It seemed extraneous at the time.”
And so it proved. The corner cleared by Gyokeres, flicked on by Martinelli and then Dowman is onto it. What’s striking about what happens next is the brutal economy of it.
With one headed touch, Dowman has taken a floundering Mykolenko out of the game, coming inside on his left foot, with two quick touches on his right foot, he has gone past Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall as if he never really existed. But he does, we can see him Platooning to the turf. Just past the halfway line, Dowman’s next touch, with his left foot, sends him away into open green grass with only the North Bank goal and the fans massed behind literally bouncing with excitement in his field of vision.
Dowman is just inside the penalty area when he take his sixth and final touch, tapping the ball home with his left foot before running over to the Arsenal fans with, I would say, a degree of understatement given what he’s just done.
Ten seconds have elapsed between Dowman’s first touch and the completion of the act.
Max Dowman is 16 years old and may be the coolest person in the stadium. Around him, it’s pandemonium. Noni Madueke has ripped down the touchline in one of the big jackets the subs wear and is the first player to get to him, closely followed by Declan Rice and then it’s just a colossal pile on. Mikel Arteta had generally, to his immense credit, come across as the calmest person in the stadium till this point, but he is wheeling around in technical area, completely subsumed by the moment.
And what a moment. I could never have believed, when Gabriel Martinelli rounded Manuel Neuer and walked the ball home against Bayern Munich last autumn, we would get anything close to that for a long time to come. For Max to not just have repeated the feat, but improved upon it is… well, as I said to my Leeds mates who apparently hate us – of course they do, we might be about to win the league – “ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?”
Here’s the Sky Sports, alllll the angles, supercut if you happen to be the one Arsenal fan on the planet who hasn’t yet seen it. In years to come, this will be a bit like the Zapruder film, but for Arsenal fans and with less blood
I’m sure in reading this, there may be some of you who haven’t quite recovered, especially if you were at the game. Especially given what then transpired a few miles away, at the London Stadium. Dinos Mavropanos, we thank you for your service and hope that your face is not too sore. Nine points clear, albeit City still with that game in hand and just seven games to go…
As I began with, it’s a weird time to be writing. We are now just hours away from Bayer Leverkusen game and whilst the endorphins are still rolling around following the weekend, I think Leverkusen showed enough last week to suggest it’s not going to be an easy night for us. And then, of course, the small matter of Manchester City in the League Cup Final on Sunday.
As if Sunday isn’t going to be stressful enough, I’m booked on an 11am train back from Leeds before heading over to my Uncle’s for a fun filled afternoon of football.
In the event I don’t get to speak to you before that game, here’s my position – I think we’re better than City and will therefore beat them. If only it was played on paper, hey?
More immediately, if you’re going to the game tonight, I will see you there, bright eyed, bushy tailed and ready to make the last eight of the Champions League.
Come on you Gunners!