Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang Made It 14 But Arsenal Got Just One on the Road

A drama-filled afternoon at Turf Moor saw us leave with a meagre one point against Burnley on Saturday afternoon despite starting up in top vibes.

Victory on this day will have meant a lot to us considering the fact that we had back in the squad Calum Chambers who had been missing in action for more than a year as a result of injury.

Also, it was the 50th Premier League appearance in an Arsenal shirt for Bukayo Saka and David Luiz since departing Chelsea.

Arsenal stamped authority so quickly when after some exchanges between Granit Xhaka and Thomas Partey, Willian was povided with the ball. The Brazilian raced forward to feed Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and after going past a defender, the Gabonese international hit it to the extreme left, quashing Nick Pope's hopes for a clean sheet as early as the sixth minute.

Our captain almost made it his 15th goal of the season with his attempt from Partey's unconverted assist. A host of other chances showed up in our favour but as if we have made it a habit to mostly not take them, we blew them off.

The best Saka could do when the ball deflected off to his path was to blow it wide. He later got involved with Martin Odegaard to set Partey up for goal. Unfortunately, he did not do any better than what Saka had done moments ago.

We paid for the missed opportunities in a bitter way. Xhaka in a bid to make a pass to Luiz in the box saw it hit Wood before rolling into the net. That equaliser gave Burnley a boost in the remaining part of the encounter.

A penalty cry came from Nicolas Pepe for a hand strike of the ball by Erik Pieters but the official did nothing about that. We looked to have gotten a penalty when Pepe's volley was diverted to the bar by Pieters. The ref showed him a red which he later rescinded upon a VAR review. It was a shoulder contact.

Odegaard was close to getting us the winner in stoppage time but the woodwork denied him of that and we had to settle for points sharing.

We will be in Greece for the first leg of our Europa League last-16 tie with Olympiacos this Thursday making it the second time we will play on that ground in the space of two weeks. The first was when we had to play our home game against Benfica in the previous round.

Following that on Sunday will be the big game, the North London derby with Tottenham Hotspur then the return leg of the Europa last-16 tie the following Thursday.