Arsenal Punching Their Weight Again in Europe

Arsenal set about their task early on and it was Sanchez who crafted the opening goal for Perez, lofting a ideal pass to Kieran Gibbs, who squared for the Spaniard to tuck home his maiden Champions League strike.

The Gunners finished top of their group with a commanding 4-1 win over Basel yesterday and Ludogorets’ 2-2 stalemate against PSG.

The Gunners will learn their Champions League last 16 opponents on Monday with a possible tie against Benfica, Bayern Munich, Bayer Leverkusen, Real Madrid, Porto or Sevilla. “He has shown he has a good smell for the goal in the box”. The first legs of the Last 16 will be played on Feb 14-15 and Feb 21-22 with the second legs on March 7-8 and 14-15.

After netting a hat-trick last week against Leicester City in a U23 game, he went ahead to score for the U18s in their 2-2 draw with Chelsea in the weekend.

“But we can still have a hard draw, Anyway, it will be hard but with less guilt when you finish first”.

Kieran Gibbs will be hoping to keep his place after an assist-packed performance against Basel but I think we’ll see Nacho Monreal come back in at left-back.

Both sides progressed to the next stage.

Vaclik was then unable to keep out Lucas’s shot two minutes after the break as the Arsenal striker emulated Mesut Ozil’s hat-trick in a 6-0 home win against Ludogorets in October. Check out his patience after receiving the pass on his first goal and the awareness to attack on his second.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger: “I thought Ludugorets were a good side – they made a great result that helps us top the group, which was what we wanted”.

“It’s hard to know [the consequences of topping the group] but you feel a little bit less guilty if you have a bad draw when you’re first than second”, Wenger said.

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But Fischer’s frustrations in the dugout reached breaking point when, two minutes after the restart, Lucas scored his and Arsenal’s third.

“It is perhaps the most precise we have been all season and it came in a game where we didn’t have a lot of space to play in”.

Meanwhile, Manchester City ended their Champions League group campaign with a 1-1 draw at home to Celtic on Tuesday, having recovered from an early blow inflicted by one of their own on-loan players.