There are definitely more entertaining ways of wasting an hour and a half… except for the final five minutes.

The Gunners’ 0-0 draw away to Red Star Belgrade in Serbia was probably one of the most boring matches I’ve watched in a long time.

Arsenal made the stronger start with Jack Wilshere making plenty of promising forward passes into the area. However, we just couldn’t find that final ball. Story of our lives.

10 minutes in and all Gooners on social media had to talk about was the dodgy camera work.

https://twitter.com/TheGoonerette/status/921061260732567552

Latest Arsenal injury updates and news

Theo Walcott drew the first save of the game in the 15th minute from close range as Arsenal ping-ponged the ball around our area. It was a decent save but he probably could have done better. Again, story of the forwards life and something that would set the tone for the rest of his match.

Arsenal continued to dominate while not doing a whole lot with the ball other than tap it around the area with Jack Wilshere, Reiss Nelson or Theo making the odd darting run into space.

Red Star didn’t look as if they were particularly bothered since they weren’t pressing or closing us down. They only stuck a boot out when they wanted to kick Wilshere or Olivier Giroud. Or they got a chance to break, which most teams now know is how to beat Arsenal.

Reiss Nelson made a fantastic tackle just before the half-hour mark, legging it back to challenge a Red Star player breaking at pace, shortly before Arsenal conceded a corner and almost allowed the home team to go 1-0 ahead as Richmond Boakye hit the bar.

In the 31st minute, Petr Cech was called into action, making a terrific save at close range. Red Star had now figured out that if they just run at Arsenal, they could probably score.

While Arsenal continued to hold onto the ball, they were gradually doing less and less with it compared to Red Star, who at least attempted to build at attack whenever they had it.

The Gunners’ passing was laboured and inaccurate and all the home side had to do was sit there and we’d kick it off the pitch ourselves.

Wilshere had obviously been given the job of corner-taker but no one appeared to be willing to get on the end of them.

Meanwhile, the camera man continued to give us all motion sickness, which was only marginally worse than the crippling boredom.

The second half kicked off and Red Star almost immediately scored. Luckily, Mohamed Elneny saved the day. How often do we say that?

However, after this, Arsenal had a good spell. Well, I say ‘Arsenal’ – it was mainly Reiss Nelson. He got forward, weaved in and out of players and crossed the ball to Theo before having a shot himself. He’s such a special player and made it look easy.

Cech was called into action again in the 52nd minute but the ball was essentially just headed at him so it didn’t take that much effort to claim.

Despite Nelson’s best efforts, the match soon descended back into a snooze-fest, which largely consisted of Arsenal’s players falling over/being fouled and doing nothing with the free-kicks.

Giroud also continued to be painfully bad.

In the 80th minute fans got woken up by Milan Rodic receiving a red card after Francis Coquelin made a bit of a meal out of an elbow to the face. He did have a little bump though, to be fair.

Despite having a terrible game overall, it was Giroud who broke the deadlock after Red Star were reduced to 10 men.

https://twitter.com/btsportfootball/status/921086455488884736

The striker linked up with Wilshere and Theo to finish one of the best goals I’ve seen from our side in a long time.

It wasn’t the most exciting game. Far from it. But we won. So there.

Latest Arsenal injury updates and news