In the early months of 2017, Arsenal lost 1-5 at home to Bayern Munich to add to the 5-1 loss they had suffered a week earlier at Allianz Arena. Losing 10-2 on aggregate in one of Arsene Wenger’s darkest hours.
Six years later, Arsenal finally returned to European football’s biggest stage. And the night was as perfect as it could’ve gone as they ran out comfortable 4-0 winners over PSV Eindhoven.
Mikel Arteta went very strong for the game despite the North London Derby looming, with the only changes being Leandro Trossard starting and Kai Havertz coming in for Fabio Vieira.
After the Champions League anthem was played, the match started with a high intensity, as PSV tested David Raya in the opening minutes, the Spaniard making a comfortable save. The visitors may have started well, but Arsenal got the early goal Mikel Arteta would have been craving as Bukayo Saka latched onto a rebound from Martin Odegaard’s shot to give Arsenal the lead. And this lead was soon doubled as a rapid counter-attack from Arsenal saw Saka play the ball across the edge of the penalty area to Trossard who finished brilliantly into the bottom corner. The Belgian scoring his second goal in as many games in the process. However, Arsenal weren’t quite done there as Gabriel Jesus later smashed home Arsenal’s third to round of a superb and clinical first half.
Arsenal started the second half in control, but couldn’t quite find a goal. On the hour, Emile Smith Rowe came on to make his first appearance of the season to a ruptures applause from the Emirates crowd. And soon after, him and fellow substitute Reiss Nelson combined and Nelson found his captain Odegaard on the edge of the box and he fired hard and low into the bottom corner to make it 4-0 and round off a fabulous return to Champions League football for Arsenal.
Mikel Arteta will no doubt be delighted that his team made the near perfect statement ahead of Sunday’s huge North London Derby.
Player Ratings:
David Raya: 8 – Home debut, some solid saves and another clean sheet. Aaron Ramsdale has a lot to do to win his spot back at this rate
Ben White 9: – Outstanding. Brilliant defensively and effective going forwards
William Saliba: 8 – Solid as a rock and strongly composed
Gabriel: 8 – Dealt superbly with De Jong
Oleksandr Zinchenko: 7 – Always involved and as composed as ever
Declan Rice: 7 – Says a lot that this was arguably Rice’s weakest Arsenal game so far yet he was still very solid
Martin Odegaard: 9 – Amazing overall performance from the captain topped of with a brilliant goal
Kai Havertz: 7 – The German’s best Arsenal game so far. Much more involved and had a lot of nice moments
Bukayo Saka: 8 – Much more like his best. Got the first goal which he took well
Gabriel Jesus: 8 – Brillaint goal, brilliant striker’s performance
Leandro Trossard: 8 – Goal, assist and another top Trossard performance