The “now” looked set to more time spent on the bench watching William Saliba and Gabriel.
The Brazilian got injure, with Arsenal chests crossed.
Hail Marys recited at the prospect of Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Junior, Rodrigo and Jude Bellingham putting the Polish centre-back to the sword in the Champions League quarter-final.
But other than a nervy ten minutes at the start of the first leg, Kiwior looked as comfortable against the 15-time Champions League winners as any of his Arsenal teammates to more than justify the club’s decision to reject transfer bids and ignore scoffs at declaring him an ‘important player’.
And while David Raya had One Of Those Games where he loses all sense of himself and Saliba made another uncharacteristic error as ทางเข้า UFABET สำหรับสมาชิกใหม่ สมัครวันนี้ รับโบนัสฟรี he did in the Bernabeu to gift Jean-Philippe Mateta the chance to score a quite sublime chipped equaliser, Kiwior produced two moments of brilliance against Crystal Palace to further vindicate the call to retain him.
He had a lot to do from William Saliba Martin Odegaard’s free-kick, meeting the ball with his head around the penalty spot and guiding.
It into the corner to give Dean Henderson no chance and open the scoring. And he then denied Eddie Nketiah a goalscoring return to the Emirates with an extraordinary block in his six-yard box as he stretched his leg out behind him.
Eberechi Eze also scored a brilliant goal, volleying the ball in off the post from a corner. Which means this was Arsenal’s 13th draw of the season and the ninth. Which they’ve given up the lead. That’s 18 points they’ve lost from winning positions compared to Liverpool’s 11. Which isn’t enough to close the gap entirely but would mean the title race would still very much be on.