WHAT HAPPENED
Our young Gunners put on a star-studded performance on Friday night with a dominant 4-1 win over Leicester City.
A hat-trick from Ethan Nwaneri and a goal from James Sweet ensured we kept up our perfect start to the season.
Mehmet Ali’s side, buoyed off a 3-0 win over West Ham in last week’s season opener, started the game brighter. We almost took an early lead when Myles Lewis-Skelly won possession on the edge of the box, but the midfielder was denied by Brad Young in the visitors’ net.
We then went close on several occasions - firstly Nwaneri placed his effort just wide after neat build-up play between Lewis-Skelly and Nathan Butler-Oyedeji.
Moments later, Sweet’s curling effort was tipped around the post by Young in what was an encouraging first half by the young Gunners.
We remained on top for large parts of the first half as Charles Sagoe Jr twice went close to giving us the opening goal. First, he rattled the inside of the post and on another occasion, he forced Young into a good stoppage when he went through one-on-one.
However, the Foxes took the lead against the run of play when Tom Wilson Brown poked home from close range after we failed to clear our lines from a corner.
Shortly after, we got our deserved equaliser in first-half stoppage time when Nwaneri rattled home from the six-yard box and we went into the break all square.
After the interval, we were given a boost when Paul Appiah brought down Khayon Edwards who was bearing down on goal and the Leicester captain was subsequently given his marching orders.
With a man advantage, we turned up the gears but somehow remained level as Nwaneri’s header crashed off the bar and Sagoe Jr’s resulting strike then cannoned back off the post.
The visitors were hanging on for dear life but we completed the turnaround just before the hour when Lewis-Skelly showed inventive footwork to beat his man and find Nwaneri in the box who tapped home for his second of the game.
Sweet added to our tally as he rifled home a vicious strike from the edge of the box to give us a comfortable two-goal lead.
We scored our fourth late on when Sagoe Jr expertly beat his man to set up Nwaneri who completed his hat-trick to cap off a fantastic team performance.
WHAT IT MEANS
We continue our 100% start to the season with six points after two league games.
WHAT’S NEXT
We begin Papa John’s Trophy action next week when we travel to Swindon Town on Tuesday, August 22.
Kick-off at the County Ground is at 7pm (UK).
TEAM NEWS
Arsenal XI: Ejeheri, Sweet (Rosiak, 77), Monlouis, Walters, Sousa, Ibrahim, Lewis-Skelly (Gower, 67) Nwaneri (Foran, 84), Sagoe Jr, Butler-Oyedeji (Flores, 67), Edwards
Subs not used: Hillson
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