Our first game back at Emirates Stadium in 2024/25 was one to remember as we recorded a resounding win over Bayer Leverkusen.
Oleksandr Zinchenko and Leandro Trossard netted within the opening eight minutes with a pair of fine goals, before Gabriel Jesus ran 40 yards to dispatch our third against the German Invincibles on 38 minutes.
Kai Havertz then added a fourth midway through the second half, and despite Adam Hlozek pulling one back, Mikel Arteta would have been delighted with the result, ruthlessness in front of goal and being able to hand first minutes of pre-season to David Raya, William Saliba, Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice.
Sensational start
We burst out of the traps playing some scintillating football, and found ourselves two goals ahead after eight minutes thanks to a pair of brilliantly-worked moves.
The first celebrations inside Emirates Stadium came when Zinchenko found Havertz down the left flank and burst towards the box. After the German’s cutback was dummied by Trossard, our new number 17 was rewarded for his energy by drilling an inch-perfect shot into the bottom corner.
Then 60 seconds later, Leverkusen tried to play out from the back, and their looseness was punished when Trossard won back possession on the edge of the box. That instigated some intricate one-touch passing between Martin Odegaard, Jesus and Havertz which bamboozled the defence, allowing Trossard to trick his way past a sliding Piero Hincapie and coolly tuck past Matej Kovar.
Gabby’s solo strike
We bossed the opening 45 and Trossard nearly grabbed a second when he was given too much time to progress with the ball and find himself 20 yards out, so he let fly and Kovar did well to push the ball away for a corner, but while our first two goals were great team efforts, individual brilliance paved the way for our third.
Eight minutes before the break, a loose throw-in from Odilon Kossounou on a rare Leverkusen attack saw Jesus seize possession 10 yards inside his own half, and he galloped forward. Allowed to continue his run, he got to the edge of the D and hammered a low effort past Kovar to register his second strike of pre-season.
Goals galore
With a healthy lead in the bank, Mikel opted to make four changes at the break including introducing Saka and Rice, and in the 66th minute the former made his first impression of the summer to help create our fourth.
Ethan Nwaneri fed the England winger who burst to the byline in typical style and centred, and with hesitation rampant inside the opposition box, Granit Xhaka merely prodded it straight to Havertz to quickly snatch up the opportunity to score in successive friendlies.
However Raya wouldn’t mark his first appearance of the campaign with a clean sheet as Xabi Alonso’s team pulled one back on 75 minutes. Former Gunners junior Nathan Tella was picked out on the right flank and he found Hlozek who when faced one-on-one with our Euro 2024 winner neatly clipped the ball past him into the net.
It wasn’t the return to north London Xhaka had wished for but he received warm applause from the home supporters when he was replaced late on, but the biggest raptures came at full-time as 60,000 Gooners cheered their side off the pitch, and left the ground with a spring in their step and even more excitement for the campaign to come.
Up next
Our pre-season campaign comes to a close when we host Lyon in the Emirates Cup on Sunday in a 2pm kick-off. Six days later, the Premier League campaign gets underway when Wolves head to north London for a 3pm start on Saturday, August 17.
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