Mikel Arteta didn’t so much lament the narrow-mindedness of England’s opponents as compare them to annoying drivers blocking Arsenal’s drive to the goal. If the Premier League is about heavy traffic, then the Champions League is in fifth gear and with the windows down.
Is there a lack of early breakthroughs? Is the score making life difficult for you? Well, how does four goals in the first 27 minutes sound?
With a brutal 6-0 win over Lens on Wednesday to secure their place as Group B winners, Arsenal are discovering that a midweek Champions League date can go a long way to easing the stress of home life.
If the defensive nature of the Premier League opponents means that the games become banal and monotonous, then the midweek European Cup games prove to be a welcome relief valve.
Just like PSV Eindhoven did in their first group game here in September (a 4-0 home win), Lens came to the Emirates with a plan to express themselves on the ball and get in Arsenal’s face when they didn’t.
Going into the game, it was clear that the French team would be very different from home opponents Brentford at the weekend, considering that 73 percent of Lens’ opponents’ touches of the ball in their first four group games came under pressure – a figure just shy of Paris Saint Germain beaten.
Arteta’s players seemed to enjoy every second of this direct approach. Taking advantage of the space on both wings, they counterattacked with murderous efficiency.
Seeing Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka on the wings was a throwback to how these two wingers were at their best last season. When they get into one-on-one situations, there aren’t many better duos in football, and the threat posed by both makes it difficult to prioritize one or the other.
With Gabriel Jesus back at the helm – somewhat surprising considering he started against Brentford after a month-long injury layoff and Arteta suggested he needed to manage his workload carefully – Arsenal had their unique blend of imperfect, threatening chaos.
The first goal was scored by Takehiro Tomiyasu, whose cross was headed into the air by Lens. As always, Jesus the Plunderer snatched up the loose ball, allowing Kai Havertz to score his second open goal in as many games – after a run of 31 games without a goal.
For the second time, Saka leapfrogged two players on the inside before pushing through another player as Jesus arrived at the wreckage, and took advantage of the panic to throw a sublime feint, creating space to calmly slot the ball into the bottom corner to play.
The low center of gravity that all three have allows them to shift their weight and open the goal, as Martinelli did when he curled the ball into the far corner for the fourth time, but they also have the courage to physically attack a defensive line hard to dismember like that of Lens.
On a night when records fell, Jesus became the first player to score in each of his first four Champions League games for an English club, while Saka became only the third player since records began (2003–2004). was who scored both a goal and an assist in three consecutive Champions League home games (after Karim Benzema and Luis Suarez). He is also the second player in Europe’s top five leagues To ten assists in all competitions this season, after Bayer Leverkusen’s Florian Wirtz.
However, it was the mix of the entire team that was so appealing.
With Declan Rice at the base of the midfield and Oleksandr Zinchenko at left-back, their build-up play was fluid, while Havertz and Martin Odegaard were able to receive the ball on the half-turn and feed the wingers rather than being pushed into the background.
It has slipped under the radar but the group that most observers envisioned as Arteta’s best front six – Rice, Odegaard and Havertz in midfield with Saka, Martinelli and Jesus up front – had not started a single game together before last night.
That all five scored when they finally managed to unite – becoming the first team in the competition’s history to have so many different goalscorers in the first half of a game – made it a near-perfect one Evening.
Asked if this was the grand plan he had been hoping to unveil for five months, Arteta grimaced as he went over the team documents in his head. Obviously that hadn’t occurred to him and that says a lot about the way he has dealt with injuries and kept Arsenal at the top in a way, both in England and in Europe.
The only concern for Arteta will be that Lens provided the perfect example last night of why teams don’t try to take on Arsenal anymore. Most teams will agree that they are simply too good a side to take such a risk against, but Arteta’s men will largely face opponents in the Champions League knockout rounds in February and March , who do not drop ten players on their 18-yard line.
It makes one curious to see how far Arsenal can go in their first season back among Europe’s elite after six seasons away.
By qualifying first with one game remaining, they avoided a round of 16 clash with first-placed Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Atlético Madrid and Barcelona, while a Group D clash will take place. between Real Sociedad and Inter Milan for pole position.
Their potential second-place opponents are likely to be Napoli, Lazio, PSG, RB Leipzig, Copenhagen/Galatasaray, Porto/Shakhtar Donetsk and Real/Inter. Not easy, but certainly not at the same level everywhere.
On what could have been a thrilling evening at the Emirates, Arsenal only had to contend with the game over.
They could be on cruise control and although they will face a very different test again here on Saturday against Wolverhampton Wanderers, it feels like they have not only integrated these five Champions League nights well into the competition, but also sharpened their senses.
(Top photo: Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)