Thomas Frank made two changes from the side that drew 0-0 with Brighton last week, with Schade and Mee (injured) replaced by van den Berg (back from injury) and Yarmoliuk. Flekken was back in goal after being taken off against Brighton. Arsenal dominated the ball for the opening stages of the match as we sat back and looked to push forward on the break. They had several half chances, but it was the Bees who took the lead on 13 minutes. Damsgaard picked the ball up in midfield, jinked past Ødegaard, and sent Mbeumo down the right channel. The winger drove at Calafiori and, just as he entered the penalty area, he cut onto his left foot and fired it low and hard past ex-Bees keeper Raya at his near post. Raya must have been expecting Mbeumo’s trademark curler into the far corner. Arsenal continued to have several half-chances but on another break Lewis-Potter was inches away from making it 2-0, when he picked up the ball wide on the left in the final third and dribbled, cut in and shot at Raya. Raya fumbled the initial shot but chased back and acrobatically clawed it off the goal line. Arsenal equalised on 29 minutes through Jesus. We failed to properly clear on the edge of our penalty area with Mebumo giving the ball away. After Partey had his shot saved by Flekken, Jesus (was this divine intervention as we have just had Xmas?) followed it up and stooped down to head the ball into the back of the net. The rest of the half saw both teams push to go ahead, but it remained 1-1 heading into the break (but I wish it had been 2-0).
The second half saw Arsenal come out with all guns blazing. van den Berg was having a poor game (and was later substituted) but in the 50th minute from one of Arsenal’s corners, Flekken completely missed his punch, and the ball eventually fell to Merino to finish from close range. Three minutes later Arsenal went 1-3 up when a cross was headed back to the edge of the area, but Martinelli picked it up and lashed it past Flekken and into the back of the net. We had a couple of chances when everybody missed a long throw from Jensen and then Collins nearly connected with a flying header. It would have been an interesting finish had we pulled one goal back, but Arsenal controlled the rest of the game and didn’t need to add to their score and the game ended 1-3.
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