Arsenal v Lille: Champions League – live | Champions League
Key occasions
73 minutes: Almost an opportunity for Lille! Rice thinks he’s been fouled however the referee waves play on, the ball is performed infield from the correct to Bakwa, and Konsa throws himself in the best way of his shot.
73 minutes: Lille take off Bentaleb and Mukau, and convey on Sahraoui and Kjaergaard.
GOAL! Arsenal 3-0 Lille (Saka, 71 minutes)
I’m sufficiently old to recollect when this sport felt shut. The three substitutes mix for this one: Odegaard releases Havertz down the correct facet of the penalty space, he cuts again to Saka, and Saka sidefoots throughout objective and in on the far put up!
70 minutes: Save! Arsenal are actually all however unstoppable. Saka’s cross from the correct virtually falls to Rice, and some seconds later Eze is performed in to the left of objective, however Ozer will get a hand to his shot.
GOAL! Arsenal 2-0 Lille (Eze, 67 minutes)
Arsenal double their lead, and this objective is all of the sweeter for coming from the ball being gifted to them by the previous Spurs midfielder Nabil Bentaleb. It’s performed down the correct to Saka, whose first contact is to cross into the center, the place Eze’s shot deflects (I feel) previous Ozer.
65 minutes: Arsenal make their triple substitution, with Madueke, Merino and Gyokeres going off for Saka, Odegaard and Havertz.
65 minutes: Madueke performs the ball into Timber, contained in the penalty space however together with his again to objective, whose first contact takes him previous Andre, and whose second dinks it over Ozer. That actually is excellent.
GOAL! Arsenal 1-0 Lille (Timber, 64 minutes)
Arsenal take the lead due to a beautiful piece of labor from Jurrien Timber!
63 minutes: Lille haven’t obtained out of their half for the reason that break. They’ve been appalling in possession, however nonetheless defensively and organisationally glorious.
62 minutes: Arteta has seen sufficient, and is readying Havertz, Saka and Odegaard for an imminent triple change.
61 minutes: Guimaraes makes an attempt a 360-degree penalty-area pirouette. Sure, he loses the ball, however these dancing toes!
60 minutes: Guimaraes runs into the world and goes down, and this time Arsenal have an interest. But the referee will not be, and neither is VAR.
59 minutes: Lille take too lengthy over a defensive throw-in, and it will get handed to Arsenal. But once more, nothing comes of it.
57 minutes: It could also be time for Arsenal to utilise their bench – the one factor that’s actually modified since half-time is the quantity of grumbling coming from the group.
54 minutes: Arsenal preserve the ball for some time, however the nearer they get to objective the much less eager they appear to be to achieve it.
52 minutes: Madueke catches Perraud, who goes down, smacking the turf with a palm in obvious agony. So the referee blows his whistle, at which level Perraud’s agony magically evaporates, and he will get up.
51 minutes: Arsenal do seem to have been instructed to get a transfer on, and the ball is zipping about with a bit extra tempo. Which is promising.
49 minutes: Guimaraes takes the primary shot of the second half, but it surely’s not excellent, and floats harmlessly excessive and huge.
48 minutes: … however that doesn’t result in something greater than a objective kick.
47 minutes: The first half ended(ish) with a few Arsenal corners and the second half has began equally. This time they’re additionally going to get a 3rd, which Rice goes to take.
46 minutes: Peeeeeeep! Arsenal get the ball re-rolling.
The gamers are again out on the Emirates, with no halftimely adjustments.
Also within the Champions League tonight:
Atletico Madrid 1-0 Manchester United
Galatasaray 1-1 Barcelona
Viking 2-0 Bayern Munich
Lens 0-2 Sporting
Sabah 2-0 Slavia Prague
Internazionale 1-1 Club Brugge
RB Leipzig 0-0 PSV
Villarreal 2-1 Napoli
Half time: Arsenal 0-0 Lille
Arsenal have had two glorious possibilities, one created with a transfer down the correct which ended with Guimaraes capturing huge, and one created with a transfer down the left which ended with Eze having a shot saved. They’ve been the higher staff, however Lille have been effectively organised and exhausting working, and goalless it stays.
45+1 minutes: Save! Guimaraes’s deflected shot bamboozles Ozer, who can’t maintain on to it and has to dive once more to claw the ball off the toes of Gyokeres and out for a nook.
45 minutes: … and his second try is cleared.
44 minutes: Madueke takes the nook, which is headed behind for an additional nook.
43 minutes: Madueke backheels into the trail of the overlapping Timber, however he can’t select Gyokeres together with his low cross, which is turned behind.
40 minutes: Arsenal have each not likely accomplished very a lot, and accomplished greater than sufficient to be successful by now. They haven’t had any durations of sustained attacking, although, no time when a objective has gave the impression to be coming.
37 minutes: What an opportunity that was! A superb cross from Guimaraes finds Timber, who pulls again to Eze, who actually must be scoring. Instead he sidefoots low and down the centre of the objective and Ozer will get in the best way, and to make issues worse the ball then rebounds to Gyokeres, who’s offside.
35 minutes: Madueke’s cross drops finally off Goffi’s shoulder to Merino, who thumps a first-time shot over the bar.
32 minutes: Lille seem to have succeeded within the first process of visiting groups, aka quietening the group.
29 minutes: Arsenal nick the ball in midfield and cross it as much as Merino, who turns backwards, the tempo drains out of the transfer, after which he offers it away for good measure. Just a few seconds later he tried a bit too exhausting to make amends, brings down Ueda and earns the night time’s first reserving.
27 minutes: 1 / 4 of the best way by the match and there was one shot on track, that feeble Merino header.
24 minutes: The VAR takes lengthy sufficient to test the choice that you simply begin to assume that he would possibly simply conjure a purpose to offer it. But he doesn’t.
22 minutes: Bentaleb’s shot deflects off a defender into Haraldsson and off him to Ueda, who turns it in. But the linesman’s flag is up!
22 minutes: And one other one! Timber is the supplier once more, this time his cross from the correct looping onto the pinnacle of Merino, however there’s not a whole lot of tempo on it, and Merino can’t generate a lot of his personal, so it finally ends up being a simple save for Ozer.
20 minutes: Chance! Arsenal work the ball effectively to get into the world, Timber pulls again to Guimaraes, and his first-time shot from eight yards or so zips huge!
19 minutes: Madueke methods himself into some area on the correct (good), however then sends in a garbage cross (dangerous).
17 minutes: Raya collects a cross after which rolls it two-handed out to the sting of the world, the place the closest participant to the ball seems to be Lille’s Ayase Ueda. Rice reacts rapidly to this improvement, although, and within the time Ueda takes to spin to face objective, he stands out a foot and pushes the ball away.
15 minutes: Now Eze does get into the penalty space with the ball. He tees up Guimaraes, who takes a contact after which hits a shot into Bentaleb – there have been 4 Lille gamers between him and objective, and he was at all times prone to hit one among them.
13 minutes: For the second time Eze passes forwards to the underlapping Lewis-Skelly, who offers the ball away. Arsenal might actually do with getting Lewis-Skelly feeding a extra superior Eze.
11 minutes: Mukau tries to be a bit fancy in midfield, offers the ball away, and fouls Eze as he tries to win it again.
9 minutes: Eze, on the left, will get previous his man properly however falls over simply as he enters the penalty space. Probably a real fall moderately than a dive – he didn’t even have a look at the referee in hope.
7 minutes: A tasty cross from Arsenal’s proper exams Ozer within the Lille objective, and he comes for it, flaps a bit, and simply deflects it past his objective, the place it falls to a defender.
6 minutes: This time Madueke comes infield and finds a pleasant cross into the penalty space, however Guimaraes can’t take it in his stride, Lille pounce upon the ball and break quick and effectively, however with out crafting a major probability.
4 minutes: Arsenal have the ball on the correct. Madueke passes again to Rice, who offers it again to him, will get it again from him, offers it again to him, will get it again from him and provides it again to him. At which level Madueke slips, falls over, by accident handles the ball and the referee offers a free-kick.
2 minutes: Lille kick off, preserve the ball for 45 seconds after which cross it again to their keeper, who biffs it left-footed down the flank into 1 / 4 of the pitch with no Lille gamers in it in any respect.
1 min: Peeeeeep!
Right then. Hands shaken, coin tossed, pennants exchanged, huddles damaged. It’s time.
The gamers are within the tunnel! Football is however a couple of minutes away now.
“With the Eurostar links close by both grounds is it time to call this the St Pancras-ico?” wonders Chris Walker. The Eurostarby, maybe?
Most of Mikel Arteta’s pre-match chat with TNT Sports focuses on Ken Friar, Arsenal’s life president, whose dying aged 92 was introduced in the present day. He was, Arteta says, “the soul of this football club. This stadium wouldn’t be built if it wasn’t for him. The legacy is immense.”
Lovely night time for soccer, this. About 16C as I sort, dipping very barely maybe to 15C by the ultimate whistle. No danger of rain. That’s the Met Office’s predictions, not my very own. From the place I’m sitting, all I can say is that the night time appears to be like darkish.
Olivier Giroud has a chat:
Definitely a particular second. This sort of heat welcome after I simply obtained off the coach meant so much to me. We will have to be actually compact and attempt to catch them on the counter-attack. We want to shut the hole between our traces, be compact and simply attempt to be environment friendly up entrance. I simply love the sport and so long as my physique nonetheless permits me a little bit nit I’m nonetheless going actually robust. I simply need to take pleasure in each single second. This one is particular and I simply need to take pleasure in it.
Also occurring tonight underneath the watchful eye of Guardian’s crack liveblogging squad: England play Greece within the second leg of their ladies’s World Cup qualifying play-off with Rob Smyth plugged in right here:
While John Brewin is watching Atletico Madrid’s dwelling sport in opposition to Manchester United within the Champions League right here:
The groups!
The groups have been named and right here certainly are these names which have been named, with Arsenal making 5 adjustments and bringing 18-year-olds Malik Hashi and Ceadach O’Neill onto the bench, whereas Lille’s bench is the place Olivier Giroud has ended up:
Arsenal: Raya, Timber, Konsa, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly, Guimaraes, Rice, Merino, Eze, Madueke, Gyokeres. Subs: Arrizabalaga, Meslier, White, Calafiori, Mosquera, Salmon, Odegaard, Hashi, Saka, Dowman, Havertz, O’Neill.
Lille: Ozer; Goffi, Ngoy, Alexsandro, Perraud; Mukau, Bentaleb, Andre; Bakwa, Ueda, Heraldsson. Subs: Gill, Sajous, Srdanović, Giroud, Sahraoui, Kjærgaard, Başar Önal, Nianzou, Verdonk, Cossier, Perrin, Diaoune.
Referee: Felix Zwayer (Germany).
Preamble
Hello world! Tonight we witness historical past being made. Lille have performed 71 video games within the Champions League and Arsenal 241, however that is the primary time they’ve performed one another. OK, it’s not the sort of historical past we’re prone to be telling our grandchildren about a few years therefore, however historical past it stays.
This assembly is especially lucky for Olivier Giroud – he referred to as it “a blessing” when he spoke to the media yesterday – who returns to his former membership for the primary time since he left to affix Chelsea in 2020, after six years, 180 video games and 73 objectives, having turned 40 a fortnight in the past. “I had to leave in order to play at the 2018 World Cup,” he mentioned yesterday. “I was really sad when I left the club but I had to make that choice, and it was one of the toughest ones in my career, but it was important and necessary for the rest of my career.” It additionally appears fairly lucky for Arsenal – Lille could also be second in Ligue 1 with a document uncannily much like Arsenal’s within the Premier League (identical quantity video games, identical objective distinction, Arsenal have another win and one draw fewer) however they’ve misplaced 10 of their final 12 video games in opposition to English groups, and all of their final seven within the Champions League.
Arsenal are with out Piero Hincapié and Martín Zubimendi, each of whom they managed to injure themselves throughout a post-match coaching session after they beat Leeds on Saturday. To lose one could be considered a misfortune, to lose each appears to be like like carelessness. Here’s one thing from Ed Aarons on that and different information: