Arsenal ease past Dinamo Zagreb to all but confirm Champions League knockout place
Arsenal's Martin Odegaard (centre) celebrates with team-mates after scoring Arsenal's third and final goal of the evening
New swimming trunks will be on the packing list for the Arsenal kitman next month after this win all but secured the club’s progress to the next round of the Champions League and facilitates a fixture gap that allows them to jet out to Dubai for some warm-weather training. A point away to winless Girona will seal the deal next Wednesday but they can afford a defeat in Spain and still expect to comfortably qualify for the last 16 in March, without the need for a February play-off.
Their European excellence of six wins from their seven matches, combined with a recent FA Cup defeat by Manchester United, has afforded them a ten-day gap between fixtures from 5 to 15 February. The reason they are keen to go and why Arsenal fans might be excited by the news is that Mikel Arteta’s team won 16 of their final games of last season after a trip to Dubai. That is the sort of run they will have to go on to stand even the smallest of chances of chasing down Liverpool at the top of the Premier League table.
They managed to sell out a fifth successive home match of a cold January night and the loyal supporters were rewarded with an efficient if not spectacular performance against average Croatian opposition.
Declan Rice set the tone with a sweet strike inside two minutes to score the club’s earliest in the Champions League in over a decade when Yaya Sanogo netted against Borussia Dortmund after 72 seconds. It was a move deserving of a goal two as Gabriel Martinelli crossed from the left, Kai Havertz cushioned the ball down and Rice connected with an unstoppable half volley.
Rice was all action and nearly scored another inside the opening ten minutes. His next moment on the ball directly in front of the vociferous Zagreb fans was to take a corner. Perhaps mindful of the midfielder’s accuracy at set pieces they employed a novel method of defence by pelting him with missiles, which largely seemed to be plastic and paper cups – with the odd coin thrown in for good measure. German ref Daniel Siebert seemed unmoved as the Arsenal player protested after his corner sailed through the penalty area and off behind for a goal kick.
An injury in training to the flavour-of-the-month Arsenal youngster Myles Lewis-Skelly made room for a rare start for Ukraine international Oleksander Zinchenko as Arteta once again had to shuffle his pack at the back. By selecting left-sided central defender Jakub Kiwior play on the right side of his central defence to allow Jurrien Timber at right back, he contradicted his pre-match statement that such a selection was not in his plans. He is a manager who truly keeps the media, fans and his players guessing at all times.
And his players then kept the crowd waiting until the 66th minute before Havertz doubled their lead. Martinelli clipped in another cross from the left and the former Chelsea Champions League final-winning scorer Havertz netted with a well-timed header. It is the first itme the German international has assisted and scored in the same match at this level.
Arenal let themselves down by throwing away a similar two-goal lead against Aston Villa at the weekend but rarely looked like making the same mistakes here. That was aided, in part , by Arteta’s ability to select from a stronger substitute’s bench that included the return from injury of teenage youth product Ethan Nwaneri.
The English teenager had the crow don their feet every time he touched the ball and so nearly created a third goal when he sent in a cross which Rice should have converted.
There was even time and opportunity for Arteta to introduce another Hale End graduate Nathan Butler-Oyedeji. The young striker came on in time added on at the end to mark a landmark night on an Arsenal journey that started wen he joined the club aged eight. That was only after Martin Odegaard had tapped in a Leandro Trossard cross and the match was well and truly won.
Raya 6; Timber 6 (Partey 59), Kiwior 6, Gabriel 6, Zinchenko 6 (Tierney 74); Jorginho 6, Rice 8, Odegaard 6; Sterling 5 (Nwaneri 58), Martinelli 7 (Butler-Oyedeji 90), Havertz 7 (Trossard 74).
Neto, Setford, Kacurri, Calafiori, Merino, Kabia.
Nevistic 6, Ristovski 6, Mmaee 6, Torrente 6, Pierre-Gabriel 5 (Hoxha 75), Ademi 5 (Mišić 59), Bernauer 6, Rog 5 (Kačavenda 59), Stojkovic 6 (Pjaca 75), Baturina 6 (Špikić 87), Kulenovic 6.
Zagorac, Filipović, Córdoba, Mbuku, Baković, Ćutuk, Pavić.
Daniel Siebert 7.
60,029.
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