Olivier Giroud and Aaron Ramsey come to Arsenal's rescue in seven-goal thriller against Leicester City

                                                                                                                                     11/08/2017

Arsenal 4 Leicester City 3: Late goals from the two substitutes saved Arsene Wenger's blushes on a blistering first night of the new Premier League season

A blistering start to the new season and, at last, a blistering new feeling at the start of a season for Arsenal. Aaron Ramsey and Olivier Giroud came off the bench to fire a late turn-around and 4-3 win over Leicester City, and give Arsene Wenger just his second opening-day win since 2010.

A trend was broken, even if Arsenal aren’t quite completely fixed. The glorious chaos of this match still conformed to some of the old order from opening weekends past for the home side: an injury crisis, consequently cataclysmic defending, and the kind of tension you usually only get at the end of a season, but that this Arsenal always seem to endure in their first game.  

Wenger has problems to solve, but then he also has three points, while Alexandre Lacazette has his first goal.

It’s a welcome break from recent history, when history was being so celebrated.

After so much talk of the 25th anniversary of the Premier League’s breakaway and all of the core traits marketed as firing the competition, these two teams seemed determined to live up it, as they offered the most breathless and goal-laden start it has ever seen: two goals in four minutes, an awful lot of pace, and very little defending - especially in the air.

How the George Graham-organised centre-halves that began this competition for Arsenal must have cringed when watching the total absence of aerial authority in their current injury-riddled backline, except then you remember that they actually opened the competition with a 4-2 home defeat to Norwich City, so maybe some of this was fitting in its own way. Leicester were just as culpable in the opening few minutes, allowing Lacazette a completely free header from a Mohamed Elneny cross, to score his first goal for Arsenal and first Premier League goal of the season after just 90 seconds. We were off and running... but Arsenal weren't yet.

It took as little time for Leicester to quell any growing home optimism from that, as Harry Maguire headed a Marc Albrighton cross back across goal for Shinji Okazaki to then nod in himself from just yards. Two free headers in the air should never have been allowed, except that it’s inevitable when you allow a situation where a side have two left-backs in a three-man defence. Nacho Monreal was in the central role that Laurent Koscielny or Per Mertesacker would usually occupy, and looked predictably out of sorts and out of position when Vardy caught him out to volley in another Albrighton cross on the half-hour.

That chance came from a misplaced Granit Xhaka pass in his own area, and emphasised another problem for Arsenal, especially with such an under-strength defence. Xhaka and Elneny seemed far too content to vacate the central area after playing a ball forward, leaving that backline even more exposed.

Little wonder the game was so open, but it did mean Arsenal were even livelier at the opposite end. Sead Kolasinac had a volley palmed away, and Danny Welbeck probably should have scored twice, before the pressure gave and the two finally combined just before half-time for the striker to force home an equaliser.

Arsenal might have had a penalty when the ball struck Wilfred Ndidi’s hand in the area, but Mike Dean waved play on.

Arsenal’s defence, meanwhile, kept waving Leicester through. Having so clearly noted just how jarringly vulnerable Cech’s defence was, the visitors upped it in the second half, playing higher up the pitch and looking expose those two two left-backs even more. Riyad Mahrez was suddenly on the ball much more, Leicester looking to pierce balls in behind much more. One of them almost saw Vardy get around Cech only for the goalkeeper made a fine sliding tackle, only for Leicester to return to a more orthodox and obviously successful way of attacking against this side: swinging balls into the area.

Mahrez did exactly that on 54 minutes from a corner after he himself challenged Cech’s handling with a shot, and Vardy was again unchallenged as he rose easily to glance the ball in.

For Arsenal’s part, it wasn’t helping that Kasper Schmeichel was at that point meeting every test in a way that the home defence was not, blocking an Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain shot at one moment and then denying Lacazette the next.

Aaron Ramsey couldn’t point to Schmeichel’s brilliance when he squandered the opportunity of the game by heading wide from just yards out on 69 minutes, but could perhaps blame a certain rustiness from just having come on as a sub.

He soon warmed up, though, and plundered a brilliant equaliser seven minutes from the end of normal time by powering the ball past Schmeichel when left free at the edge of the box.

The levy had broke, and Arsenal finally broke a trend through another substitute. Five minutes from the end, Giroud rose above the Leicester defence, to supremely head the ball in off the bar and over the line.

It meant Arsenal get over an old problem, for an invigorating new feeling - they just have to address a few other problems to make sure that feeling endures.