With their 1-0 victory against Leeds at Elland Road, Arsenalhave gotten off to their greatest start to a Premier League season in theirhistory.With the game-winning goal by Bukayo Saka, Mikel Arteta‘s team improved to 9-0 in their last 10 matches and went four points up at the top of the league standings.
With this start, the Gunners havenow won nine of their first 10 Premier League games, matching their best start to a season in the top division since 1903-04, when they also had 9-0. Although the Spaniard’smen won, they did not have it easy at Elland Road. Leeds had many chances to steal a point, and Patrick Bamford missed to convert hispenalty kickand also had a goal annulled.
In added time, Arsenal’s Gabriel Magalhaes was sent off for kicking out at Bamford, adding to the tension after the Whites believed they had been granted a penalty. While both calls were initially upheld, referee Chris Kavanagh later reversed course, determining that the English strikerhad really shoved the Brazilian defender to the ground first.
The reason why Arsenal’sclash against Leeds was stopped for over half an hour
Technical issues at Elland Park. (Eddie Keogh/Getty Images)
Only five minutes after kickoff, apower outage caused chaos with the referee’s communication system, prompting the officials to pause the game at Elland Road.An alleged “power spike” at the startcaused the problems, which resulted in the stoppage of play and the subsequent dismissal of both teams to the locker rooms by referee Chris Kavanagh.
Despite the fact that the game had been going for all of a few seconds, there were already claims that the broadcast feed, VAR, referee communications, and even the lighting in Leeds had been disrupted. While the remainder of the game’s systems may not have automatically rebooted as quickly as the lights, they did so fairly immediately.
Both teams remained on the field while play was stopped while stadium personnel and the referees investigated the issue. Kavanagh alerted Mikel Arteta and Jesse Marsch to the situation, and the spectators voiced their displeasure with the delay.
At almost 9:30 AM (ET) / 2:30 PM UK, the referees came back for the VAR test, this time in their pre-match attire. When they were finished, both teams warmed up for the standard 10 minutes before resuming play. After waiting 40 minutes over the match’s scheduled start time, it was finally agreed that play may commence at 9:40 AM (ET) / 2:40 PM UK.
