Arsenal spanked four past Nottingham Forest on Tuesday night, the first time they’d scored four in back-to-back games since 2015.
It was an exciting game, filled with players all keen to make an impression on the boss, and they certainly did that.
So what did we learn?
You can’t coach Granit Xhaka not to shoot
As if to show his hit against Hull was no fluke, Xhaka replicated it against Forest, with only a slight deflection stopping it from being a carbon copy.
You can try and tell him not to do it. But he won’t listen (please don’t listen, Granit)
Nicklas Bendtner is more like Adebayor than he’d care to admit
They once famously squared up to each other on the pitch, and if you didn’t know any better you would swear that the Dane was summoning the spirit of his Togolese former teammate as he did his best to score and cripple Granit Xhaka with a terrible scissor tackle.
Henri Lansbury also did his best to break half the Arsenal team, all without Paul ‘this is actually my first Arsenal game’ Tierney thinking any were worthy of a card (he didn’t even deem one worthy of a freekick). He finally got a yellow after 66 minutes by which time he should have picked up at least another three.
The Ox still has some magic
It seemed to me that the Ox endured another difficult evening until the last ten minutes or so of the game when he came to life. His goal was everything that is great about the Ox – strong while also delicate and controlled, powerful and fast but deliberate and unstoppable.
More of that please, Alex.
Lucas doesn’t care what you think
I couldn’t believe it when I saw people not only slating Lucas after his Arsenal debut, but being picked up and published in newspapers as some journos echoed their views.
Against Forest he showed why he was purchased.
Pace, intelligence, a deft touch, some fight and a lot of nerve.
Amazing what you can get for under £20m these days if you look around.