Arsenal huffs and puffs and finally blows over fifth-tier Sutton United in FA Cup fifth round

Such have been the woes of Arsenal’s season lately that even a fifth-round FA Cup tie at a fifth-tier opponent didn’t quite feel like a total certainty. Back-to-back losses in the Premier League allowed Chelsea to open up a 10-point lead. The EFL Cup is long gone. And a 5-1 Champions League hammering by Bayern Munich in the round of 16 on Wednesday condemned that campaign as well.

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And so awaited Sutton United on Monday night, in its puny Gander Green Lane. To call it a stadium sort of flatters it, since only a fraction of the field is ringed by real stands. It has a capacity of just over 5,000, but only 765 fans can be seated. But this has been Sutton’s home since 1912. And that hardly got in the way of the club knocking out, in order, fourth-tier Cheltenham Town, third-tier Wimbledon and second-tier Leeds United in this Cinderella run.

Arsenal, presently fourth in the Premier League, sit 105 places above the Sutton semi-pros, who were in the sixth tier just a season ago. The Gunners beat Hull City in their last league game, whereas Sutton lost to a club called Guiseley. Still, it took Arsenal a slightly embarrassing amount of effort to bully its way to a 2-0 victory and a place in the quarterfinals, where they will face more fifth-tier dreamers in Lincoln City.

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But let’s, for a moment at least, get back to Sutton, which embodies the irrepressible appeal of the FA Cup. The club had to build a temporary TV studio so the BBC could broadcast the game. And it was so overwhelmed by ticket demand that even some season-ticket holders couldn’t get in. “If the Queen phones up, we’d have to turn her away,” one club official told The Telegraph. Sutton had to hire a PR firm just to handle the volume of media attention.

“Our only chance is if they put out the reserve side,” manager Paul Doswell said before the game. The longtime manager is unpaid and says he has spent perhaps $100,000 of his own money on the cash-strapped club, mostly going towards its artificial turf field.

Some of this Bad News Bears charm borders on the comical. Sutton’s 46-year-old backup goalkeeper Wayne Shaw looks, shall we say, unathletic.

He was apparently spotted in the club’s bar at halftime.

And the camera caught him indulging in a meat pie late in the second half.

Yet this game will mean a great deal to Sutton long after the final whistle rang out. The revenue it will generate is earmarked to pay for four new locker rooms and showers for the youth teams, which is a big deal for the club.

For the obvious talent imbalance, however, Arsenal didn’t really create much early on.

It took almost half an hour to break Sutton’s resistance, on the first real chance the Gunners crafted. Lucas Perez cut inside from the sideline and served up a low cross. Theo Walcott tried to backheel it in but missed. Untouched, the ball squirmed in at the far post.

Embattled Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was relieved nonetheless.

Arsenal had just one other chance before halftime, when Alex Iwobi rolled a side-footer wide.

In fact, Sutton had a real look at an equalizer when Gunners goalkeeper David Ospina passed right to an opponent. But Adam May sliced his finish into the side netting,

In the 55th minute, Arsenal registered the final score. A ball across the box made it through to Walcott, who smacked it in for his 100th goal in all competitions in the club’s service.

Sutton labored its way to a few more chances of its own, before it ran out of gas. Most acutely, Roarie Deacon – an Arsenal academy product, just like several of his teammates – smashed a shot off the crossbar.

Arsenal cruised in the end. Claiming the sort of game it couldn’t really win, in a way. A victory, after all, was the absolute minimum expectation. Sutton’s fans flooded the field after the final whistle to drink in the last drops of the occasion. Their team had held their own. And the club may never have such a big game again.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.