Arsenal wasted little time in moving into a comfortable lead, earning an impressive 6-0 victory in today’s Emirates Cup clash with Sevilla.
The Gunners named a strong line-up for today’s clash, and we were quickly into our stride. It was only around 10 minutes in when Martin Odegaard’s ball over the top of the defence left Bukayo Saka clear, with the defender flapping to push our wonderkid to the floor to gift us the penalty.
Saka stepped up confidently and made no mistake in sending the goalkeeper the wrong way, and we had barely stopped celebrating when our lead was doubled. Gabriel Jesus picked up the ball on the wide left, teed up Gabriel Martinelli down the left before cutting into the box, and the goalkeeper parried it into his path for him to hit it over the keeper into the goal.
Just 60 more seconds were needed for the Brazilian to double his tally, this time running into the box to latch onto the fast ball, with him sliding into the shot to put it beyond the goalkeeper.
We continue to pile the pressure on, and our pressing forced Bono in goal to make the mistake, gifting the ball to Saka to complete his brace.
While we continued to look dangerous for the remainder of the half, we were unable to add a fifth, and we came out after the break unchanged.
Granit Xhaka had a great opportunity midway through the new half, running onto Thomas Partey’s through ball over the top, but his volley went over the crossbar.
Jesus completed his hat-trick with around 15 minutes remaining before being replaced by Eddie Nketiah to a standing ovation, and his replacement closed out the game with the sixth goal late on.
I can’t think of a better way to close out our pre-season with a massive high, by demolishing one of the best teams in Europe, and we can now aim all our preparations on Crystal Palace on Friday.
Patrick