Arsenal made hard work of very little on Tuesday night, which has become something of a theme in their Champions League campaign. Lille arrived at the Emirates with Davide Ancelotti, son of Carlo and in his first season as a head coach, charged with making life difficult for one of the form teams in Europe. For an hour they more or less managed it. Then Mikel Arteta’s substitutes arrived, and the game was over inside eleven minutes.
Jurrien Timber broke the deadlock in the 64th minute, finishing off a low cross from Noni Madueke for his first goal of the season. Three minutes later Eberechi Eze doubled the lead, turning in a pass from Bukayo Saka that took a slight deflection on its way through, and his first touch after coming off the bench was the assist. Saka was not finished. In the 71st minute he arrived at the back post to turn home Kai Havertz’s cutback, completing a routine 3-0 win that flattered Lille rather less than the scoreline suggested, given how little the French side had threatened all evening.
It extends Arsenal’s winning run in the Champions League league phase to 14 games, a streak that now includes nine clean sheets. Three different scorers, Arteta pointed out afterwards, each making an impact from a different starting position in the team. “It was a joy to watch the goals that we scored,” he said, “three different players and a number of different players participating.”
Five changes and two injuries, but barely a dip in standard
Arteta made five changes from the side that beat Leeds United 2-1 at the weekend, the kind of rotation that has become necessary rather than optional given what lies ahead. Arsenal face eight games in 25 days, a run that will test every squad in the country, and the manager has made clear he intends to use everyone available to get through it.
That task got harder before kick off. Piero Hincapié and Martin Zubimendi were both ruled out through what Arteta described as “two very unfortunate incidents” picked up in a training session involving players who had not featured enough recently. Both will need further assessment before a timeframe on their return becomes clear, which is an unwelcome subplot given the weeks Arsenal have coming up. Bruno Guimaraes, in only his first Emirates start since his summer move, slotted into the midfield alongside Declan Rice and looked perfectly at home doing it, even if he and Eze both passed up good first half chances that would have settled the contest far earlier than it eventually was.
Lille, for their part, barely laid a glove on Arsenal’s goal. They finished the night without a single shot on target, their best moment arriving when Ayase Ueda had the ball in the net only for the offside flag to cut short any celebration. Ancelotti was honest about it afterwards. “For us it was difficult to keep up with the rhythm they put after 60 minutes,” he said, before adding that his side “didn’t deserve this score.” It was hard to argue with him, even allowing for the fact that 0-3 was a harsh reflection of a game that had been fairly even for the first hour.
Saka’s impact, Giroud’s return and a record few can match
The story of the night, though, belonged to Saka. He had been unwell in the build up to the match, and Arteta admitted there had been a conversation about whether he should even be involved. Whatever reservations existed were answered inside minutes of his introduction, first teeing up Eze and then scoring himself, and Arteta did not hide his relief that his player had pushed to play. Asked about Saka’s response to the challenge of being needed despite feeling below par, the manager said simply: “If that’s the case I’m very happy and welcome it.”
It continues a remarkable individual record in continental competition. Saka now has four goals for Arsenal this season and 19 goals and nine assists in major European competitions during his time at the club. Only Thierry Henry, with 16, and Cesc Fabregas, with 14, have more Champions League assists for Arsenal than Saka’s nine, and he is still only 25. Those are the kind of numbers that used to take entire careers to accumulate at a club like this one, and he is building them while barely out of his mid twenties.
There was a warmer, more sentimental story unfolding at the other end of the pitch too. Olivier Giroud, once an Arsenal striker himself and still fondly remembered by the home supporters for his five years at the club, was given a generous reception when he was introduced from Lille’s bench. It was the kind of moment that reminds you football has a long memory even when the result in front of you is as one sided as this one became. Among Arsenal’s own substitutes, Max Dowman also got a late cameo, another reminder of the strength Arteta now has pushing for involvement even in a Champions League squad already stretched by injury and fixture congestion.
What it means going forward
None of this will particularly worry anyone at Arsenal, who continue to look like one of the most complete sides left in this competition. A perfect record in the league phase, goals shared around the team rather than concentrated in one or two players, and a bench capable of changing matches inside a handful of minutes are exactly the ingredients a club with serious ambitions in Europe needs heading into the thick of the fixture list. The injuries to Hincapié and Zubimendi are the one obvious concern to come out of an otherwise comfortable night, and Arteta will be hoping the assessments due in the coming days bring better news than the circumstances suggested at full time.
For Lille and Ancelotti, there is still a long league phase to come and plenty of time to pick up the points this result cost them. For Arsenal, it was another night when the understudies did the job just as well as the regulars would have, which is precisely the point of building a squad this deep in the first place.
If nights like this are becoming routine at the Emirates, it is worth being there to see how the season develops. Subscribe to It Was Always… Football to keep up with every twist along the way.