Arsenal have moved five points clear at the top of the Premier League table courtesy of a 2-0 victory over struggling Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux this evening.
Martin Odegaard scored both goals for the Gunners - both in the second half - as Mikel Arteta's side took full advantage of Manchester City's dropped points earlier in the day.
The champions' shock home defeat at the hands of Brentford meant that Arsenal were already guaranteed to go into the World Cup break as Premier League leaders, regardless of their result in the Black Country.
However, they further underlined their title credentials with a confident 2-0 triumph as Wolves were condemned to spending Christmas Day sitting bottom of the Premier League.
Nottingham Forest's triumph over Crystal Palace earlier in the day had seen Wolves sink to the bottom of the pile, and their ninth defeat of the season leaves them four points from safety, with only 10 points to their name from 15 games this term.
New Wolves boss Julen Lopetegui was introduced to the crowd beforehand and watched on from the stands, but he will spend the World Cup break gearing up to take the club away from a looming relegation battle.
Arteta, meanwhile, will look to maintain Arsenal's unexpected title charge when domestic football resumes next month, having picked up 37 points from a possible 42 so far this season.
Gabriel Jesus saw a goal correctly disallowed for offside after only six minutes, while he also clipped the top of the crossbar later in the first half as his personal goal drought continued.
The team as a whole are suffering no such drought, though, and this time it was Odegaard who proved to be the match-winner with two goals in 20 second-half minutes.
The captain's first came 10 minutes after the restart when he tapped home from close range after Fabio Vieira had clipped the ball across the face of goal.
Odegaard then doubled his tally 20 minutes later as he fired home a rebound after Wolves had failed to clear Oleksandr Zinchenko's cross from the left.
Goncalo Guedes and Daniel Podence came closest to registering for Wolves, but they failed to score for the eighth time this season while Arsenal's league-best tally of 11 goals conceded remained intact courtesy of a seventh clean sheet of the season - another league-leading tally.
The Gunners have now won three successive league games without conceding for the first time since July 2020, while Wolves have won just one of their last nine top-flight outings ahead of Lopetegui officially taking over on Monday. body check tags ::
