Will Arsenal's habit of conceding late goals ruin their title hopes? | OneFootball

Arsenal let a two-goal lead slip in the second half away to bottom-of-the-league Wolverhampton Wanderers on Wednesday night but are late goals conceded the Achilles' heel of the leaders?

The Gunners looked like they were cruising to an easy three points at Molineux until Hugo Bueno reduced the deficit with just over an hour gone after a fantastic curling effort from the edge of the area.

Mikel Arteta's failure to put the game to bed from that point on and look complacent may come back to haunt them by the end of the season with Riccardo Calafiori's attempt to get a last-ditch block ultimately resulting in him scoring an own goal.

In Arsenal's last three games in which they dropped points (a defeat to Manchester United and draws against Brentford and Wolves) they have gone ahead in all of them.

The North London side took the lead against United before going 2-1 down. However, after levelling they immediately conceded to Matheus Cunha's excellent 87th-minute strike.

Noni Madueke had given Arsenal away to Brentford but 10 minutes later Keane Lewis-Potter netted an equaliser before throwing away a two-goal lead against Wolves yesterday.

Arsenal still have the best defence in the league having conceded just 20 goals all season but of the eight goals conceded in 2026, six have come in the second half with only Evanilson and Bryan Mbeumo managing to net against the Gunners in the first 45 this calendar year.

Indeed, Arsenal have only conceded six first-half goals all season (the lowest this season alongside Manchester City) meaning that 70% of their goals conceded have come in the second half of games.

Stoppage time in particular is a problem that Mikel Arteta must address before the end of the season.

No team has as high a percentage of stoppage time goals conceded this season as Arsenal. A remarkable 20% of the goals conceded by the Gunners have come in stoppage time. By comparison 18.9% (Newcastle) and 17.77% (Leeds) are the closest to Arsenal's figure.

Meanwhile, challengers Manchester City have conceded 8.33% of their goals in stoppage time while third-place Aston Villa are yet to concede after the full 90 minutes is gone (the only team alongside Everton to do so).

Of course, this run of winning just three of eight Premier League games in 2026 may just be a hurdle for them to clear before going on to the title as many expected them to. However, there are warning sides that the contenders can falter late on.