Madueke thrives and dives to put Saka in the mud as Arsenal do The Arsenal

Amid all the frankly now very tiresome ‘Arsenal are boring; yes, but we don’t care’ discourse we couldn’t help but think of the difference between what we were watching on Wednesday night and the quite stunning display from Arsenal against their previous Bundesliga opponents in November. And yes, we know, they don’t care.

We all delighted – perhaps begrudgingly – in the brilliant 3-1 win over Bayern Munich. The only people delighting in Arsenal wins of late have been the Arsenal players, Mikel Arteta, his staff and the fans. What’s that? Oh yeah, they don’t care.

Noni Madueke and Kai Havertz denied us the chance to see if the ‘how’ might matter after a defeat. It won’t now. A draw was an undeserved but perfectly functional result for a horribly functional football team. How many times have we said that in 2026?

A brilliant Arsenal move from back to front in the 20th minute, featuring a great pass from Jurrien Timber, a lovely Eberechi Eze dummy, unselfish play from Viktor Gyokeres and a stinging Gabriel Martinelli shot off the bar led to mental preparations for 800 words on a Professional Away Performance in the Champions League.

Hugely impressive teenage striker Christian Kofane was proving a handful for William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes, but not in a way that will have had Arteta particularly concerned for his side, who – as has been the case in innumerable games this season – had unconvincing control of proceedings.

For the 427th time this season, half-time discussions revolved around the need for Arsenal to up the tempo, go up through the gears or any other football cliche signalling a first-half performance level way below what we all know they are capable of, even though that’s a zenith they’ve not got close to for what feels like far longer than the four months it’s been since Bayern.

But Robert Andrich did the heading and Ibrahim Maza did the holding from a corner seconds into the start of the second half to ensure the Arsenal chickens came home to roost. The Gunners’ comparitive lack of threat from their own corners and the Leverkusen chance created from kick-off before the goal, which was as good as a set piece such was its evident meticulous planning, will be cause for intropection from set-piece megamind Nicolas Jover as Arsenal were beaten at their own game.

But not beaten. The flowers for the draw go to Noni Madueke, with a petal or two afforded to Kia Havertz for slotting a penalty under huge pressure against his boyhood club.

Leverkusen won’t be happy to have conceded the penalty. It was the slightest of touches and obviously not enough to send Madueke sprawling as the extra step the winger took before collapsing made clear. He’s got previous for such antics, but will argue – entirely reasonably – that he won’t get the penalty if he doesn’t take the fall. Perhaps he shouldn’t have got it.

But it was a driving run between two Leverkusen defenders typical of his dynamic, direct display after being introduced by Arteta on the hour mark.

READ MORE: Ranking all 31(!) Premier League managers this season: Mikel Arteta off top spot

Madueke’s very first action saw him win the ball next to his own box before roaming forward to win his side a corner. He looked as in form as Bukayo Saka looked out of it. The Gunners captain created no chances, had no shots, completed one of his three dribbles and crucially in the mind of his manager lost six of his eight ground duels.

“Football is about duels,” Arteta said before the game. “You have to win duels, dominant territory and dominate the ball possession. That’s what you want.”

By contrast, as well as looking infinitely more dangerous in the final third, Madueke won all three of his duels and gave credence to the belief held by a growing number of Arsenal and England fans that he’s more worthy of a place in the starting XI than his previously immovable teammate.

Arteta deserves credit for the substitution, too. No matter how badly Saka was playing, he’s been his get-out-of-jail agent enough times to make it a big call in a big game that he got right. He won’t get much credit beyond that though.

And although the assumption will now be that Arsenal will ‘get the job done’ at the Emirates because they sort of did here and have done far more often than not through this harrowingly insipid run of performances, Leverkusen have pulled some huge away results out of the bag in the Champions League already this season.

They beat Benfica, whose only other defeats in all comeptitions were to Qarabag and Real Madrid, whom they also beat on their own patch. They beat Manchester City at the Etihad, who lost to a pre-nonsense Tottenham in August but haven’t lost to anyone else since. And they are just the third team to beat Olympiacos in Greece along with Real Madrid and Panathinaikos.

Those results would suggest that Arsenal might have to be better in the second leg. They probably won’t be and it probably won’t matter. But it probably will at some point.