Gary O’Neil accused Arsenal of deliberately wasting time during the closing stages of Wolves’ 2-1 defeat at the Emirates Stadium.
The Gunners moved, temporarily at least, four points clear at the top of the table, but they were forced to cling on at the end after Cunha’s late strike set-up a nervous finale.
Arsenal, as they had done against Lens in midweek, flew out of the traps and were 2-0 ahead inside a quarter of an hour thanks to goals from Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard.
But it was a lapse from Oleksandr Zinchenko, who had been instrumental in creating a goal for his captain, allowed Wolves’ Brazilian forward to reduce the deficit in the 84th minute.
Wolves were given fresh hope of finding an equaliser when the officials added on a minimum of six additional minutes but Arsenal saw out the game, in part, to some cynical delaying tactics, much to O’Neil’s frustration.
He told beIN Sport: ‘I just thought Arsenal took ages over the restarts at the end. I was told we were going to 98 because there was a long stoppage in added time but they had three restarts and they took 45 seconds with each.
‘I felt at the time it could have been extended slightly because we’re trying to clamp down on timewasting.
‘We’re seeing a lot of people booked for delaying restarts and didn’t feel like we go the time we thought we should’ve had.’
Odegaard, who has now found the back of the net in successive matches having recovered from injury, was disappointed with his side’s second half performance and hopes his teammates have learned a valuable lesson.
‘We started so strong again,’ he said. ‘The first half was brilliant. We scored two good goals and dominated everything. We let them in a little bit with the goal, but that’s football. I guess we have to learn from that.
‘We know in the Premier League that you can never switch off. Today was a good example of that. We have to make sure we do even better next time we go 2-0 up.
‘It’s been a good week with some good results. We’re there at the top and we have to keep improving and keep pushing.
‘[The schedule] is tough, but almost the whole season is tough. You don’t have much time to recover. We have to be smart with our recovery and get some rest before the next game [against Luton].’
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