MARTINELLI MAGIC DOES THE TRICK
Brazilian stars in romp for Arsenal
NOT BAD so far for someone whose best position is not a striker, according to Unai Emery. And not bad for a £6million snip of whom not that much was expected so soon after his summer arrival from Brazilian fourth tier side Ituano.
While £72m club record signing Nicolas Pepe has struggled to make an impact and Mesut Ozil is now struggling to get a game, Gabriel Martinelli is dishing out lessons in how to make yourself an instant fans’ favourite.
The 18-year- old forward may only have done so in two of the lesser cup competitions but the exciting Brazilian can only work with the opportunities he has been given. How he has taken them.
So well in fact that by half-time his Wikipedia page had been excitedly edited to describe him as the lovechild of two of Brazil’s all-time greats, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho.
After two goals on his full debut against Nottingham Forest in the Carabao Cup, Martinelli scored twice against Standard Liege to set Arsenal on their way to a second Europa League Group F win and become the youngest player to score a European brace for the club.
Two games, four goals and some start from the scampering South American who married an impressive work-rate with clinical finishing. There was a clever assist too from Martinelli to give Dani Ceballos a tap-in to open his account and Joe Willock also struck.
For Emery’s side it is now two games, two wins, seven goals and six points — a beginning to their Europa League campaign as encouraging as Martinelli’s start to his Arsenal career.
Emery said: ‘His performance and his attitude was amazing. He played in pre-season and in every training session he showed he is hungry to be with us and have opportunities to show his capacity. I told him to be calm for when his opportunity arrives to play and if he continues with that hunger he is going to do well. Tonight he confirmed that.’
Emery made 10 changes to his starting side but, in a damning indictment, there was still no place for Ozil despite the German not being injured.
Missing league games and being deemed not physical enough for certain away matches, as was the case last season, is one thing. Not even making the bench for a cup game when Emery is making wholesale changes is another, ominous thing altogether.
Emery said: ‘I decided not to pick him because other players deserve more. He has to continue working. Tomorrow we have training and Sunday we have another match and we have to decide the same — the best XI possible to achieve our target to win and also adapting to the difficulty of Bournemouth.’
World Cup winner Ozil was not needed anyway, not when Arsenal had Martinelli.
After his first display of feverish pressing, when he hassled Gojko Cimirot into a mistakeke and created an early chancece for Willock, came two examplesples of expert finishing fromm Martinelli.
His first was a brilliantly taken header from Kieran Tierney’s cross which was preceded by some excellent movement to confuse his marker Zinho Vanheusden and earn the space he foundd himself in to direct the ballall into the top corner.
Two minutes laterr and Martinelli had anotherr Arsenal double to his name. Reiss Nelson did well to keep the ball in and drive to the byline before crossing. This time Martinelli got to the ball before Vanhesuden again, sorted his feet out and spun on to his favoured right, before flashing a clinical finish past Vanja Milinkovic-Savic, who was once on Manchester United’s books.
Liege hardly had time to compose themselves before they almost shipped a third only for Willock to volley the excellent TieTierney’s latest estlatest left- wing delivedelivery over. The mmidfielder did not hahave to wait long for another Europa League goal having also struck against Frankfurt. Tierney and Nelson continued to torment Liege down the left and when the latter’s shot pinballed to Willock, it was his turn to fire past Milinkovic-Savic.
Twenty two minutes gone and Arsenal were 3-0 up. The half should have ended with a penalty when Nelson was brought down after being put through by that man Martinelli but Swiss referee Sandro Scharer took pity on Liege and awarded a corner instead. Scharer seemed only to be delaying the inevitable.
Hat-trick-hunting Martinelli was inches away from finding the top corner with a near carbon copy effort of his second goal against Forest. Then he could not quite stretch far enough to turn in Nelson’s cross.
Inevitably, he was involved when Arsenal’s finally made it four, as creator rather than scorer. Martinelli burst on to Ainsley Maitland-Niles’ clever pass and his chipped cross cleared MilinkovicSavic, leaving Ceballos with the simple task of stabbing in from less than a yard out.