Mission accomplished and confidence just about restored as Mikel Arteta’s side bounced back from their weekend defeat by Manchester United only to concede a goal with the last touch of the match and fail in their quest to become the first side in European Cup/Champions League history to win eight in a row by two or more goals.
Bar their consolation goals, their Kazakhstani opponents offered little resistance, but Arsenal’s eighth successive win came from goals from Viktor Gyokeres, Kai Havertz and Gabriel Martinelli, which will only boost morale ahead of their crucial weekend away trip to Leeds United in the Premier League. And not a set piece in sight!
The only benefit of topping this league phase of the competition, aside from avoiding a two-legged February play-off, is they will play the second leg of all their knockout matches at home.
Despite not completely selling out, there was still the best part of 60,000 paying punters here to create a party atmosphere to mark Kairat’s final match of their first league phase campaign in the Champions League, and a new look Arsenal line-up try to create competition history.
When I say ‘carnival’ atmosphere it was more like a pre-season or testimonial vibe against novelty opposition.
Arteta used the match to give his fringe players a chance to shine and changed the entire starting XI from their weekend defeat. One was the much-maligned striker Gyokeres, who scored inside the opening two minutes with exactly the sort of goal that persuaded Arsenal to pay around €60million for him in the summer. And then did little else.
Havertz, making his first start in 357 days following injury, passed to his new attacking team-mate but the Swede did all the hard work by holding off a defender and shooting with enough power that Kairat keeper Temirlan Anarbekov’s attempted save merely deflected the ball into his own net.
The Kairat faithful, some of whom presumably made the 3,500-mile trip for their big night out in London, probably expected such a fate having conceded a whopping 19 goals in their first seven games. What came as more of a surprise was their chance to celebrate an equaliser just five minutes later.
In the hope this does not read as patronising, the feat of the side scoring here was huge. Arsenal, as a club, was already over 100 years old by the time the Kazakhstan Premier League was formed in 1992. The average wage there is less than €1,000 (one thousand)-a-week and Kairat add their name to those of Bayern Munich and Inter Milan as the only other two sides to breach the Arsenal defence in Europe this season.
The goal, only their sixth ever at this level, came from a well-taken penalty by Portuguese striker and captain Jorginho. Swiss referee Urs Schneider awarded the spot kick after a lengthy VAR delay for Riccardo Calafiori’s hand on the shoulder of Kairat’s goalscoring skipper.
Havertz, clearly Arenal’s best player, made sure of a satisfactory return to the side by restoring Arsenal’s one-goal advantage in the 15th minute. A classy left foot finish from a classy player.
It appeared as though Gyokeres had added Arsenal’s third goal, ten minutes before half-time, but an offside check showed that it was Martinelli who touched the ball over the line to make it six goals from his eight European appearances so far this season.
Gyokeres should have finished it himself and, aside from his well taken goal, this was one of a series of poor misses, He worked hard to get into all of the right positions to score and could easily have had five in the first half alone.
Arteta took the opportunity to rest Havertz and Calafiori by take them off at half-time as the rest of the supporting cast tried to make the most of their chance to catch the eye of their boss.
Few impressed but it was a big night for their latest two young homegrown players Brando Bailey Joseph and Ife Ibrahim, who both came on to make their senior debut. That made it 19 academy graduates to make their first team debut under Arteta.
The final move will hurt Arteta, though, as they once again conceded late on when Ricardinho headed in unchallenged from a Valeri Gromyko cross. Cue scenes of lengthy celebration from the visiting team and their supporters after the match.
Kepa 6; White 6, Mosquera 6, Calafiori 6 (Hincapie 46), Lewis-Skelly;7 Norgaard 7 (Ibrahim 89), Eze 5, Havertz 8 (Odegaard 46); Madueke 6, Gyokeres 6 (Jesus 77) , Martinelli 7 (Bailey-Joseph 77).
Anarbekov 6, Luis Mata 6, Sadybekov 6, Jorginho 6 (Bagdat 79), Martinovich 6, D Glazer 6 (Kassabulat 70), Tapalov 6 (Ricardinho 59), Mrynskiy 6, Shirobokov 6, Edmilson 6 (Gromyko 59), Sorokin 6.
Urs Schnyder (SUI) 5.
