Arsenal breezed to an easy 3-0 win against Qarabag FC tonight, with youngster Smith-Rowe getting his first senior goal.
We started the match brightly, and even broke the deadlock inside five minutes thanks to a somewhat lucky touch from Sokratis, who looked to get the opener with his groin from well inside the nine-yard box.
With such an early goal some of us may have been thinking that we were going to run away with it, but in all fairness our opponents had much of the half. Some may even say we were lucky to go into the break leading, but 1-0 at the midway point it was.
We didn’t have to wait too long into the second half to push on and build on our lead, and another surprise scorer in Emile Smith-Rowe doubling our lead, having run onto a neat through ball before slotting under the keeper.
It clearly was a day for surprise scorers as Guendouzi completed the rout inside the last 15 minutes. A request a bet on those three to score at any point would have been huge…
Danny Welbeck and Guendouzi both had clearcut chances to try and add a fourth late into the match, but both failed to hit the target but the scoreline leaves us in great stead going into the third Europa League fixture.
Was Smith-Rowe your man of the match? Did Welbeck miss a chance to get into Emery’s first team plans?
Pat J