Mikel Arteta would not have liked the extra seconds played as his Arsenal team looked to see out their aggregate advantage over Chelsea in the Carabao Cup semi-final second leg. Until Kai Havertz scored, of course.<\/p>\n
The Emirates Stadium was initially told there would be six minutes added time. It was only in the 97th minute, when Havertz sprung forward on the counter-attack to score the sole goal of the game, that their passage into the final was secured.<\/p>\n
The scenes were naturally jubilant. Havertz, a former Chelsea player, pointed to the Arsenal badge in celebration. There was a pitch invasion from the Arsenal substitutes. Songs about Wembley were sung.<\/p>\n
But in the cold light of day, Arteta will hope the moment can provide a springboard for his team and Havertz \u2014 and maybe even an answer to a transfer dilemma.<\/p>\n
Can Havertz plug midfield gap after Merino injury?<\/p>\n
On deadline day, Arteta surprised assembled journalists when talking about the team’s need for a new midfielder following a potentially season-ending injury to Mikel Merino.<\/p>\n
“We need to do everything that we possibly can to see if we have a player that is available,” he said of potentially adding a new player on deadline day. “If we don’t, OK, we keep what we have.”<\/p>\n
Merino is a valuable squad player. In midfield, he provides a thrusting presence and in recent years he has filled in as an emergency forward too. In one-and-a-half years at Arsenal, he has 15 goals.<\/p>\n
With no midfielder signed on deadline day, the Gunners will need to go with what they’ve got. And what they’ve got, is Havertz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mikel Arteta would not have liked the extra seconds played as his Arsenal team looked to see out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-449011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}