Arsene Wenger must have been happy to see his wards continue their pre-season preparations with a dominant performance against Ligue 1 side Lyon. Arsenal brushed aside the French side with a 6-0 friendly win.
There were goals for Olivier Giroud, Aaron Ramsey, Alex-Oxlade Chamberlain, Mesut Ozil and a late one for Santi Cazorla. But, what must have been a sweet outcome for Wenger is the goal for winger Alex Iwobi. The 19-year-old scored his first goal for Arsenal and the expectation within the club is that it is the first of many.
Wenger’s side played with style and never let Lyon any bit of freedom to come into the game; although the visitors were rusty. The Gunners opened the scoring on the half-hour mark when the French forward Giroud headed from a free-kick by Ozil. The Frenchman was then involved in the second goal that was scored by Oxlade-Chamberlain. Giroud gave a wonderful through ball to Ox who slotted it easily to the corner.
This should give confidence to Giroud who must be watching the rumours of impending bid to sign his fellow international Karim Benzema with interest. He must be eager to prove a point to Wenger that he deserves a chance to lead the line and may be do well in big games. This match is in no way a big game but can give a lot of confidence to Giroud.
It should also give confidence to Nigeria-born Iwobi who scored a wonderfully constructed team move. Ramsey also scored from a superbly-timed run. Ozil would then add a fifth in the second half to cap a great day for the German international. Cazorla rounded off the scoring by scoring with a free-kick.
The performance comes against a side which is still easing into pre-season action. If the game is an indicator of how the Gunners can play, then the first impressions are really good. The goals will surely put Wenger at ease but he may still think about signing a proven goal scorer.
If we leave the intricacies of this being a pre-season game and nothing more than a friendly, it should be seen as the first steps of Iwobi. He is the nephew of former Bolton forward Jay-Jay Okacha and back in Nigeria is considered to be the one for the future. Time only will tell if he will be able to fulfill his potential.
So now who will start against Wolfsburg? Cech and Wilshere are certain….
Sridhar
Its only a meaningless friendly…..
Man United beat Barcelona yesterday this is proof that friendlies are never a good gauge for how strong your team is,we still need a new striker let’s not be fooled
agreed but still we were good
Yes we were good against Lyon in a friendly let’s not forget this,Lyon are not like playing Barcelona,Real Madrid,Bayern Munich in the Round of 16 in the champions league where we’ve gotten out in the last 5 years!
Lets be realistic this seasson, if wenger doesent buy at least one top quality player we we end up 4th again, Im tired of wenger selling fog and making profits.
If we dont buy at least one top quality player, preferiby left wing or forward 25milion+ we are will end up 4th again.
It’s a friendly….yes.
But I wouldn’t go to say it’s meaningless.
In modern football there’s no meaningless game. Do we really think Barcelona is thinking oooh well its meaningless…hell no! I am sure as all my cule friends sre quite that they Re looking inside to fix any problem.
No. They aren’t meaningless. Thy give the coach an players any view of the possibilities and that has a meaning.
Try to tell people on these countries that a friendly between Argentina and Brazil is meaningless…….
Would quite like a draw or at least a tightly contested game, these whitewash victories can very quickly breed complacency which Chelsea will easily snuff out.
I’m sure many are gonna argue me and say our results have been down to our superior play etc, and while that may be a factor I don’t rate anyone we’ve faced in terms of what’s been on display. Everton were pedestrian as it gets only for Lyon to make them seem like Barca.
Cmon Wolfsburg really test our squad before Chelsea.
The lord will rip as apart. Just wait and see. Bendtner hattrick. Kisses then Giroud bec he is such nice guy.
for those still hoping that we sign benzema, please waste your time on something else…wenger is anything but never confused when it comes to the teams cohesion…unless he sells giroud, he ain’t gonna buy benzema cz that will lower the teams stability due to the obvious rivalry between giroud and benzema…i however am 100% sure he will buy reus!!!!
100% is a very bold prediction. Any evidential rumour or proof?
a friend of mine’s uncle works at arsenal specifically with the incoming-transfers team….reus is coming to arsenal believe me guys and to make matters even more interesting, mr wenger does not expect to bench giroud for anyone as he sees him as core part of his game…but he will rotate him from time to time
Your uncles friend….!!!!!
Man you should be fighting with Leo for that official kind of rumour announcer at justarsenal!
Most will not agree with you but will quickly forget that Man U also beat Barca yesterday which shows friendly games are just that friendly games,it’s not about winning but getting players back to full fitness and up to speed before the real premier league business starts
WE STILL HAVE NO NEW STRIKER
Yes from last season
the club has added
Walcott, Ox, Gnabry
Iwobi, Akpom.
A top class striker and dm to compete with coq and we def have a squad ready to challenge for the tittle come on wenger splash the cash and make us prem league champions again we want the glory years back!!
Mourinho accusing other Premier League clubs of ‘trying to buy the title’. Jose Mourinho. The game’s biggest chequebook manager now complaining the irony
Tottenham look much
more settled this season.
He said;
“In the beginning of Mr Abramovich coming to Chelsea, Chelsea was buying the title,”…”Now, they are buying the title. All of them, they are buying the title.
….”It is up to us to be strong and to fight them and, obviously, to try and win it again, even without the big investments.”
To be fair he did say Chelsea have bought the title and was expressing the competition is getting stronger and trying to buy the title. But Chelsea are not in any need to invest heavily now because they have already invested to build a squad that won the EPL.
Arsenal has beaten lyon in six pre-seasons so a win to them doesnt mean anything.Infact its concern that giroud cant score hatrick against lethergic lyon where youngstars scored.Utd beat barca,Ings is banging hatricks for liverpool,this mean wenger agenda of youth policy and ffp has caused us 10 boring yrs without title,utd have effectively bought the league and wenger money is in bank he wants to make is players happy, hope will also be happy
wait, did you seriously turn this into a “why didn’t Giroud score a hatrick” thing?
get a grip, your hate is just making you sound stupid now
K ool? Is that you…you (de Niro voice)
I don’t get it…is it meaningless or not?
If it’s meaningless then giroud not scoring a hat trick there is also meaningless
Very good performance yesterday. Once again I’m blown away from the vision of Ozil. He is I believe on a par from with what we use to have in Cesc. I also like seeing him take free kicks because that will make him more comfortable with that style of pass which is one of the things I most admired about Cesc which was his over the top ball.
I also thought we ran into lanes well and that is all about effort no matter if it is Lyon or Chelsea. Many times if those runs are made on the outside it will open another secondary run like Ramsey had through the middle yesterday.
I would love to see such performance against Chelsea next week to instil more belief or faith in me about the squad we have. Even more so I would like to see us thrash Chelsea 6-0 on September 19 at Stamford Bridge if possible to make up for the famous game 1000. And most importantly, if we are really serious title contenders the first 8 games should see a result of 6 wins and 2 draws and making sure we don’t lose to any of Liverpool, Chelsea and Man Utd in addition to winning 2 out of 3 those games.
You forgot to mention Girouuuuuuud
Hahaha
Peace
I never really saw the Benzema to Arsenal transfer happening And I’d still say at this point it’s unlikely but Di Maria to PSG looks likely to happen. I don’t think Madrid even if they plan to use Ronaldo as a number 9 would not have a top quality striker in their squad. But Di Maria could potentially free Cavani to Madrid Then we get Benzema. Or just get Cavani. This could be this summers chain that frees up someone for us to sign.
Can’t see Bayern selling lewandowski. Unless Cavani to Bayern Lewandowski to us.
Good result but we still need a top quality striker. A good litmus test will be next weekend against Chelsea to see where we’re at.
Absolutely
Chelsea isn’t Lyon and this isn’t a friendly.
We will play our top players (minus Alexis 🙁
against their top players. It should be a decent indicator of where we are.
Win or Lose (hopefully win).we still need one more Top Forward
Gotta say, Ox is looking phenomenal. He seems to have just grown leaps and bounds since his last injury. It’s scary how much he is ripping teams apart. I know it’s pre-season but DAMN.