Danny Welbeck headed a last-gasp winner to earn Arsenal a huge 2-1 win over Leicester City in the Premier League title race at Emirates Stadium on Sunday.
The Gunners had toiled in their attempts to beat the Foxes, who had taken the lead on the stroke of half-time through a Jamie Vardy penalty, but Welbeck stepped off the substitutes bench to glance home Mesut Ozil’s stoppage-time free-kick and move Arsene Wenger’s men to within two points of top spot.
Claudio Ranieri’s visitors had been reduced to 10 men when Danny Simpson was sent off with 35 minutes remaining but looked to be hanging onto a point after Theo Walcott, also off the bench, had levelled.
However, Welbeck, who had not kicked a ball this season before his introduction with a little over five minutes remaining, was on hand to score a stoppage-time winner and inflict just a third league defeat of the campaign on the leaders.
Wenger was full of praise for the match-winner Welbeck who marked his return from a 10 month injury lay-off with a valuable header.
“You know Danny Welbeck; he is a great guy, with a great mentality. He worked extremely hard. That is why he is fit,” Wenger said, having only decided to put the forward on the bench at the last minute.
“(I decided) yesterday. In the last two days he was convincing in training. I planned at the start, when I made my press conference on Friday morning, to play him next week.
“But in the last two training sessions he was very strong and I decided just in the end to include him in the squad.
“It was a great decision because Danny Welbeck is a great player, and you never know in our job, if somebody else had come on, would he have scored or not?
“But everybody is extremely happy for him, because he has been out for 10 months, that is an eternity for a player. We work very hard, our medical team, our fitness team, to bring him back so strong. Let’s not forget he has not played one minute for us.”
