Even allowing for Cucho Hernandez’s spectacular overhead kick, the irresistible skill of Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka proved an unbridgeable gulf in class as Arsenal maintained their top-four charge with a 3-2 victory over Watford at Vicarage Road. This was hardly anticipated as a potential upset, with Watford’s wretched home form at the heart of their increasingly certain slide towards the second division, but this was never a cruise for Mikel Arteta’s side and contained an unnecessarily nerve-riddled finish.
Arsenal had looked to be strolling towards a fourth successive Premier League win after Odegaard and Saka combined to devastating effect inside the opening five minutes. But Hernandez’s outrageous stroke of imagination galvanised Watford and, even after Saka and Gabriel Martinelli reinforced Arsenal’s ascendancy, Roy Hodgson’s side remained threatening and should really have reduced the deficit before Moussa Sissoko added their second after 86 minutes.
