Arsenal 1-3 Swansea: Nobody can do it on a rainy Tuesday night at the Liberty

Tuesday night’s match between Arsenal and Swansea epitomized where each club is at in terms of reaching their goals this season.

Swansea have experienced a resurgence under new manager Carlos Carvahal. When the Spaniard came in the club looked destined for relegation; now every team in the league — barring Manchester City, obviously — fears a trip to the Liberty Stadium.

Nacho Monreal, the goalscorer Arsenal have been looking for, opened the scoring shortly after the half hour mark. The goal came against the run of play, as Swansea had had the better of the chances up until then. Regardless, it was a beautiful goal that showed why you can’t leave a player of Mesut Ozil’s class any space to pick out a pass.

Swansea responded brilliantly, with an equalizer a minute later from summer signing Sam Clucas, who beat Petr Cech at the near post after he was set up by a brilliant through ball from center-back Alfie Mawson.

The remainder of the first half was uneventful, and so were the first 15 minutes of the second half but then Arsene Wenger subbed in Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who made his debut for the Gunners.

It was an attacking change and a minute later there was a goal, but not from Arsenal. Monreal made an error in judgement and threw a deep throw in backward to Shkodran Mustafi, who made a poor error in judgement and played a back pass to Cech who had three defenders running down on him.

Cech flubbed the clearance and gifted an tap-in to Jordan Ayew. The Ghanian was deserving of the goal. He’s been placed in a new defensive forward role under Carlos Carvahal where he’s tasked with chasing down clearances, hassling opposition center-backs and deep midfielders, and even dropping into midfield to set-up a bank of five at times for the Swans. All of these are tasks forwards don’t want to do, but Ayew has done them superbly and he’s finally reaping the rewards.

Arsenal scarcely looked a threat to draw level. Barring an extended stretch of possession in Swansea’s defensive third around the 80th minute mark, the Welsh side looked comfortable and content as they kept Arsenal’s lackadaisical attack at bay.

At the 86 minute mark, Swansea sealed the deal as Ayew took on the Arsenal defense, got to the byline, and cut the ball back for Clucas who scored his second of the match as he hit the ball into the roof of the net.

Wenger watched in dismay as not only did his side lose a match they should be winning, but there wasn’t one point in the game where they looked the better side. The loyal French manager watched on as his biggest signing of the previous summer, Alexandre Laccazette, posed zero threat to the Swansea back line. Arsenal have one day left to sign Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang. If they don’t complete the deal, what does the future hold for a club whose best player just left for a league rival, and second best player is set to leave for free in the summer?

On the other side, Carvahal and his staff were in a state of jubilation on the sideline, and why shouldn’t they be? The Welsh side have picked up nine points from a possible 15 in the league since he took over. All three victories have been surreal.

Next: Arsenal: Arsene Wenger will be the key to Henrikh Mkhitaryan

The first was a two-goal comeback in the final 10 minutes away to Watford; the second was a 1-0 defeat of Liverpool, who had handed arguably the greatest Premier League team of all time their first defeat of the season about a week earlier; and the third one came on Tuesday.

The club didn’t add anyone this transfer window, and even sold one of their marquee summer signings, Roque Mesa, to Sevilla. All things considered, the audacity of hope should be the only reason the club believed in survival. But sometimes hope is all you need.