ARSENAL PARTY IN PRAGUE
Arteta’s European dream still alive GOALS IN SIX MINUTES PUT GUNNERS ON ROAD TO SEMIS
IT IS seven goals in nine games for Alexandre Lacazette and a place in the Europa League semi-finals for Arsenal. This might end up quite a good season for Mikel Arteta after all.
The weather was miserable in Prague but little else was. This was an exceptional performance, the tie put away with three goals inside 24 minutes, the fourth coming in the second half to give proper and deserved emphasis to the scoreline.
It many ways, it summed up the gulf in quality between these teams. Arsenal, clinical and expansive, Slavia Prague sluggish and floundering, well beaten and unable to resist.
Granit Xhaka, in his new defensive role, played a quite lovely ball to Pepe down the left and he picked out a man, not an area, with a welldirected cross. Lacazette controlled it and had time to take two or three touches, looking for an angle as Slavia’s defence watched beguiled. Finding his spot, he shot the ball past goalkeeper Ondrej Kolar, and that was the game done. In truth, it was obvious when Slavia coach Jindrich Trpisovsky made four substitutions at half-time that this was time for resting legs and damage limitation.
Arsenal’s focus, from here, is clear. Arteta knows only too well the significance of a Europa League win and he would be mad not to prioritise the semi-final and meeting with his predecessor Unai Emery and Villarreal over mundane league fixtures. This could be the right time to play Arsenal — in domestic competition at least. In Europe, nobody will fancy facing them after this. Not even the manager who knows every weakness in the squad.
It was Arsenal’s season on the line and, for once, they played like it. This is a club that has been too used to settling of late. That settled for a place in the Champions League rather than a genuine impact on the competition. That settled for fourth as a trophy. That settled for endless transition. That sacrificed ambition for financial security. That settled for the Europa League and were grateful for that.
And it looked as if they might settle this season, too, for mid-table mediocrity and a first season outside of European competition since 1995-96.
Yet in a brilliant 10-minute spell at the Eden Arena, those presumptions were blown away. Arsenal did not settle in Prague. They did not bail out of this campaign midway through April. There may be little to play for at home — other than the local pride of finishing above Tottenham — but Arsenal in Europe is very much a live event. And while the Europa League is still on, so is the Champions League next season. Arsenal are three matches away from a place amidst the elite, having been distanced from it for so long.
Between minutes 14 and 24, Arsenal scored four times. The first did not count, and by the smallest of margins, but the other three did and the tie was done with more than an hour to spare. To think we were worried that Slavia Prague might have too much for them at home.
It was November 27, 2019, when they last lost in Prague — to Inter Milan in the Champions League — and that late away goal in the first leg looked as if it might be significant. Arsenal made it an irrelevance before the opposition had time to regroup and come up with a Plan B. This tie was done when the second went in, that a third followed almost immediately merely conjured a sense futility.
Slavia Prague were outclassed and knew it. They do not possess young players of the calibre of Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe. Few club do. They took the game away from Slavia, took their chances in a way that, had it happened in the first leg, would have made this return a formality. Arsenal started slowly, but their first break forward of note looked to have given them a lead. They were up in numbers and Saka’s shot was palmed on to the left post by goalkeeper Kolar — still wearing face and skull protection as a memento from that truly horrid game in Glasgow in the previous round. The ball flew out and Smith Rowe was first to it, beating David Zima to the ball and firing home.
And then, the dreaded VAR delay. It is worse in European competitions where replays are not shown, meaning everyone hangs around in the dark waiting for the voice from above. When it came, it decreed that Smith Rowe had strayed narrowly offside before attacking the loose ball and Prague breathed again. Referee Cuneyt Carkir gave the signal but Slavia’s reprieve lasted all of four minutes.
It was a lovely passing move that led to the first goal. Calum Chambers was involved, so too Thomas Partey, but it was Smith Rowe who was the creator with a quite exquisite ball inside to Nicolas Pepe. He moved quickly to evade his marker and lift the ball sweetly over goalkeeper Kolar. It was a vital away goal — but Slavia’s task was about to become so much harder.
From Arsenal’s next attack just two minutes later, Smith Rowe broke down the right, causing consternation and feeding Saka, who was looking increasingly untameable. Sure enough, Jakub Hromada bundled him over and Cakir pointed immediately to the spot.
Lacazette stood up to take it. He has been enjoying a lease of life with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in disgrace and now ill. The malaria diagnosis will explain certain weaknesses of late but Lacazette has responded in his absence. He did so again here. His penalty was smart, low and sent Kolar the wrong way. It was becoming increasingly difficult for Arsenal to make hard work of this.
Certainly after the 24th minute when the third went in. By now, Arsenal simply looked a different class, to the extent that the fact Leicester lost to this Slavia Prague team is genuinely puzzling. Chambers played Saka in on the right again and he checked inside before fooling Kolar by striking his shot towards the near post. Kolar had been following the movement to the opposite side of goal. It took him completely by surprise — much as a 3-0 lead so soon in the first half will have confused many Arsenal fans. What happened to doing it the hard way?