Arsenal defeated Sydney FC 2-0 on Thursday, thanks to goals from Per Mertesacker and Alexandre Lacazette.
Pre-season is a difficult time to judge players. Few players are fully fit, and the standard of opposition can often be questionable at best.
Nonetheless, it was great to not only finally see the Arsenal back in action, but also playing well against A-League champions Sydney FC.
A crowd of 80,000 was in attendance to see a number of the Arsenal youngsters put on a show, as well as witness Alexandre Lacazette’s first goal for the club.
Just as there were stand-out performers, there were a few who didn’t have the best game and won’t have convinced Arsene Wenger to play them more.
2Per Mertesacker 6
It’s great to see the BFG playing football again as he demonstrated once again that despite not having much experience in a back three, he’s plenty comfortable there. He showed that he can still read the game very well, but was beaten for pace Sydney’s best chance of the half. Granted, at his age, I think we can expect that to happen from time to time.