The new Arsenal signing Sead Kolasinac made a brilliant home debut yesterday against Benfica, and he came out of the traps in style and had a hand in three of Arsenal’s five goals. He practically singlehandedly created the first goal for Theo Walcott and his forward runs gave him a hand in both Walcott’s second goal and Alex Iwobi’s fifth strike.
The Bosnian international admitted that he was a little nervous at the start, but he soon got over that. “It was a really nice feeling, my first time here,” Kolasinac said on Arsenal.com. “I was a bit nervous before because it was my first game here at Emirates Stadium. I’m happy that we won the game and that the fans welcomed me so well.
“[For the first goal] Alex played me the ball out wide and I thought it would go out, so I followed it up, won it and saw Theo in the background. I chipped it over to him and he finished it ice-cold.
“I think we combined really well going forward. We don’t all know each other so well yet and we’ll still need to get to get more used to each other but today we saw lots of good combinations, particularly when we went forward.”
It was a fine first game and it will give him and the team confidence to get a result against Sevilla today and retain our very own trophy. Arsene Wenger was very happy with the team dynamic, and it looks like our gruelling pre-season has got the lads up to speed. “It was a pacy English game, and of course the pitch is top quality and the rain made the game quite quick and on top of that we scored many goals,” Wenger said. “Unfortunately we conceded a few but overall it was a very positive game.
“Many of the goals were the consequence of our team play that we work on, so overall you can see that the guys have played together for a while and the combination play is good. We had good finishes and we always looked dangerous.”
With the Community Shield just one week away, the team looked fit and dangerous. Alexandre Lacazette came on for the last 15 minutes to get a taste of the Emirates atmosphere, and hopefully we will see a lot more of him today against Sevilla. If he is as impressive as Kolasinac, we could be in for a very good season…
COYG! Onwards and Upwards!
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