Max Dowman becomes youngest Premier League scorer as Arsenal leave it late | OneFootball

Arsenal had to rely on 16-year-old Max Dowman to eventually break Everton's resistance and go 10 points clear at the top of the Premier League.

It was a game in which the home fans got nervy as the minutes went by without breaking the deadlock. 

Unsurprisingly, the visitors saw very little of the ball but they definitely had the potential to cause an upset with Dwight McNeil's curling effort bouncing off the post in the first half. Riccardo Calafiori was also called into action to produce a kind of scorpion kick block.

The hosts felt that they should have had a penalty in the first half when Eberechi Eze fed Kai Havertz through on goal. Michael Keane caught the back of his heel as he attempted to keep up but neither the referee nor VAR saw fit to award a spot-kick.

Fortunately, Mikel Arteta had substitutes he could turn to in the second half, some of which proved pivotal in eventually turning the game around.

After 88 minutes of Everton resistance, the Emirates erupted in the 89th minute when a cross was whipped in from Max Dowman on the right. Jordan Pickford, playing his 350th game for Everton, tried to clear it but could only punch the air. The ball instead fell to first Piero Hincapié to head down and then Viktor Gyökeres tapped into an empty net – all three of those players had come from the bench.

Everton searched for an equaliser late on and sent everyone, including Pickford, forward for a late corner. Instead the ball broke to Dowman who was able to casually run the majority of the pitch and pass into an empty goal – an incredible moment for the youngster.

Arsenal will have to produce better attacking performances in some of their remaining games this season but the manner of that victory must feel like the team are getting ever-closer to the title.