Armenia ease to win over minnows Andorra

Andorra 0 Armenia 3

Armenia picked up their third win in Euro 2012 qualifying after easing past Group B’s bottom side Andorra.

Marcos Pizzelli gave the visitors the lead 10 minutes before half-time at the Estadi Comunal in Andorra la Vella and Gevorg Ghazaryan doubled their advantage in the 57th minute.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan completed the scoring with a stoppage-time penalty at the end of the game after Andorra defender Ildefons Lima was sent off in conceding the spot-kick.

The result lifts fourth-placed Armenia onto 11 points but is not enough to gain them any places in the standings, while Andorra remain rooted to the foot of the table with no points from their seven games.

Armenia had already seen Ghazaryan fire an effort wide from the edge of the area and an Artur Sarkisov shot tipped around the post by Andorra goalkeeper Jose Antonio Gomez by the time they went ahead through Pizzelli.

The Metalurg Donetsk forward found the top right-hand corner of the net from outside the box to record his third goal in qualifying.

That was the only strike separating the sides at the break, but Armenia started the second period looking determined to put further distance between themselves and their hosts.

Sarkisov and Edgar Manucharyan both tried their luck from outside the area without hitting the target before Pizzelli, in the 54th minute, brought a brilliant parry out of Gomez.

Gomez then easily dealt with visiting captain Sargis Hovsepyan’s 65th-minute shot before the home custodian produced another fine stop to keep out Ghazaryan’s drilled right-footer five minutes later.

Gomez could not continue keeping the Armenia attack at bay, though, and the visitors doubled their advantage when Ghazaryan fired in from close range.

Armenia added a third goal late on when Mkhitaryan slotted home from the penalty spot after Lima had brought down Karlen Mkrtchyan – a foul that saw the Andorra skipper shown a straight red card.