If you have never seen a Premier League game and decided to start watching this season, take note that this isn’t a normal situation.
Raising the bar for the other 379 games this season, Arsenal defeated Leicester City in a thrilling 4-3 contest that had both teams playing from behind and taking the lead at various points.
Two quick goals got us started as newly signed Alexandre Lacazette and Shinji Okazaki scored goals within the first five minutes.
It seemed like both teams were itching to get on the pitch to score goals. Leicester then broke the tie in the 29th minute as top scorer from Leicester’s Premier League winning season, Jamie Vardy opened his 2017-18 account with a stunning volley with his left foot.
That held until Arsenal took advantage of a lapse of discipline from Leicester right before halftime. Wanting an offside call, the Leicester defense almost all simultaneously stop and raised their arms. The linesman didn’t raise his flag, Danny Welbeck got an easy goal and Leicester learned a tough lesson about always playing to the whistle.
After being knocked down, Leicester got right back up with a second Vardy goal to take the 3-2 lead.
Then, as they usually do, Arsenal got it back by the end and pulled out a win. Aaron Ramsey and super-sub Olivier Giroud are usually good for a late goal and they did just that to claw three points away from Leicester and to the Gunners.
Obviously, with this being the first game of the season, Arsenal is going to be top of the table for at least the next 12 or so hours until the rest of the Premier League plays on Saturday.
This was surely one of the best Premier League opening weekend games in years. It’s no doubt going to spoil all of us because the rest of the games are going to suck by comparison. But if the rest of the Premier League season is half as good as what we saw today, we’re going to be in for a very special season.
