Key events
42 min: Zaïre-Emery crosses from the right. Deflected. Easy for Raya. Arsenal are well on top now, though they’ll surely have Leicester’s (admittedly futile) two-goal comeback on Saturday in the back of their mind. A long way to go yet.
40 min: PSG were beginning to build up a little momentum, but that second goal has taken the wind out of their sail. They’re struggling to contain Saka, who dribbles dangerously down the right before eventually being flagged offside.
38 min: Saka sashays along the byline to the right of goal and fizzes a ball towards Trossard, three yards out. Trossard becomes the latest Arsenal player to miss the ball altogether, but this time his air-swish doesn’t fox Donnarumma and PSG clear their lines.
37 min: “You’re not singing any more,” holler the Holloway Road faithful, goading the previously vocal 3,000-strong away end.
GOAL! Arsenal 2-0 PSG (Saka 35)
Arsenal showcase their set-piece smarts. From the right touchline, Saka curls low towards the near post, six yards out. Martinelli swipes and misses. Partey takes an air shot. No matter, because both lunges have befuddled Donnarumma, and Saka’s delivery bounces straight through and into the net!
34 min: Saka is skittled by Nuno Mendes while going nowhere down the right flank. A free kick, and a chance for Arsenal to showcase their set-piece smarts.
33 min: Zaïre-Emery backs himself in a footrace with Gabriel down the right … but he’s wrong to do so. As Gabriel ushers the ball out for a goal kick, holding the PSG man off with alpha-ease, he gestures to the crowd, celebrating his achievement as a striker would a goal. He’s within his rights. Fine defending. The crowd respond gleefully.
31 min: Doué sends Hakimi off down the right. Calafiori is left in his dust. He enters the box and lashes a fierce cross-cum-shot that Raya deflects behind for a corner, from which nothing comes. PSG haven’t panicked since falling behind, and now they’re beginning to ask a couple of questions.
29 min: Rice should send Saka clear down the right but clanks his diagonal pass straight at Nuno Mendes, who is in the thick of it at the minute.
28 min: Nuno Mendes finds a little space down the inside-left channel. He reaches the edge of the box, Saliba giving him a little too much time. He lashes a low outswinging shot towards the bottom right. It clips the base of the post and out for a goal kick. Raya didn’t have that covered. Inches away from a spectacular equaliser.
26 min: Barcola is sent scampering down the left. He enters the box, with only Timber to beat for the opportunity to shoot. He shows Timber the ball, with a view of dragging it around a lunging defender … but Timber’s not to be diddled, and toe pokes the ball away from the winger before clearing his lines. That’s outrageously good defending. The small matter of a whole season out injured aside, it’s not taken Timber long to show his quality in Arsenal colours.
24 min: Kai Havertz can’t stop scoring at the Emirates. Six matches in a row now.
22 min: Hats off to Partey, as well, for winning the ball to set Trossard and Havertz on their way. The 3,000 travelling Parisians had been making most of the noise, but now it’s all Arsenal as you’d imagine.
GOAL! Arsenal 1-0 PSG (Havertz 20)
… but never mind, because seconds later, Trossard swings a delicious high ball in from the left, having cut inside with determination. Donnarumma comes out and misses. Havertz times his run ahead of Pacho, and loops a header over the flapping keeper and into the top left!
19 min: Saka slips Havertz into space down the right. He reaches the byline and fizzes a cross into the six-yard box. Donnarumma is out of the picture, beaten at his near post, but Rice hasn’t gambled by making a forward run and Hakimi can hook clear. A disappointing end to an incisive move by Arsenal.
17 min: PSG have enjoyed 55 percent of possession so far. A measure of how well they’ve settled after their slightly slow start.
16 min: Nuno Mendes goes down after running slap-bang into Saka, who wasn’t in the mood to give way. The PSG defender receives a quick spot of treatment before springing back up again.
14 min: Arsenal then go up the other end, Saka crossing deep from the right, Donnarumma catching confidently. Nothing much wrong with the keeper’s thigh if that leap was anything to go by.
13 min: Nuno Mendes sends a simple ball down the middle, and Doué is clear. He whistles a low drive inches wide of the right-hand post, then the flag goes up for offside. On Amazon, co-commentator Alan Shearer bemoans the late whistle, saying it was clearly off, but had that gone in, VAR might have had to get the rulers out.
12 min: PSG are beginning to settle. They string a few passes together and push Arsenal back in doing so.
10 min: Calafiori shows his worth down the other edge of the pitch. He’s nearly turned by Hakimi down the right, but sticks out a leg to concede a corner before a dangerous cross can be delivered. From the resulting set piece, Nuno Mendes shanks a wild shot miles right of goal.
9 min: The exciting Calafiori strides down the middle and slips a pass to Saka on his right. Saka cuts back into the box and aims a curler for the top-left corner. Just too high. Just a bit too far wide. Tonight’s first shot in anger sails over the bar.
8 min: … but apart from that, Arsenal are winning the majority of the 50-50s. Most of the game is being played in the PSG half, albeit nowhere near their goal. Not yet.
6 min: Saka dozes 30 yards from his own goal and has the ball taken away from him by Barcola, who should take a speculative dig from the edge of the box but pauses in the hope that a better option shows itself. A better option does not show itself. Arsenal clear their lines.
4 min: Donnarumma is thankfully fine to continue. He gets up and restarts the game.
3 min: Raya goes long down the middle. Very long. Donnarumma comes to the edge of his box to claim confidently, though he’s clattered by the extended leg of Martinelli, who was within his rights to compete for the ball. The keeper holds on, then the doctors come on to have a look at the thigh that’s kept him out for the previous three matches.
2 min: All a bit scrappy during the opening exchanges. Frantic and fast. Then Saka and Havertz threaten to get in behind PSG on the right, but the flag pops up for offside after they exchange passes.
PSG kick off. The 3,000-strong away end have their back in the noisy style.
The teams are out. Arsenal in their famous red and white, PSG in first-choice blue. A crackling atmosphere in north London, despite the rain falling with extreme prejudice. We’ll be off in a minute, once fists have been bumped, coins are tossed, and Bukayo Saka takes receipt of the best pennant.
Some great news already for Ligue 1 tonight. Brest have just won 4-0 at Red Bull Salzburg, and for a couple of hours at least, sit atop Big Table. Some story this: they’ve never even won a major domestic trophy! Rob Smyth has the details of that, plus news of Stuttgart’s 1-1 draw with Sparta Prague, as part of this evening’s Clockwatch.
Pennant watch. There’s nothing at all wrong with this …
… until you see how PSG have taken things up several notches. Poor Marquinhos getting the bum deal in the merch swap tonight.
The MegaLeague, as it stands after one round of matches. This is quite sweet, isn’t it.
Mikel Arteta speaks to Amazon Prime. “Very excited … looking forward to it … the kind of scenario we want to be involved in … [the starting team] is the right fit … a lot of quality … physicality … goal threat … everything we are looking for … [PSG coach Luis Enrique is] a very tough opponent … it’s a great test for us … we have to play with a lot of courage and determination … use the crowd … make it a very tough place to be.”
Arsenal and PSG don’t have too much in the way of shared history, but what there is between them favours the Gunners. The clubs met in the semi-finals of the European Cup Winners’ Cup back in 1994: Ian Wright and David Ginola ensured the spoils were shared 1-1 in Paris, then the much-loved Kevin Campbell scored the only goal in the second leg. Arsenal went on to beat Parma in the final. Fast forward to 2016-17 and two games in the Champions League groups: it was 1-1 in Paris again, Edinson Cavani scoring after just 44 seconds, Alexis Sánchez equalising, Marco Verratti and Olivier Giroud receiving their marching orders in added time. The match at the Emirates finished 2-2, Cavani and Giroud scoring in the correct nets, Verratti and Alex Iwobi putting through their own. Both teams went through to the knockouts, and PSG boss Unai Emery joined Arsenal the year after.
Arsenal’s starting XI – and their tweet doesn’t lie – is the same named for the 4-2 nail-biter against Leicester City three days ago. Their new midfield signing Mikel Merino has recovered from injury and is on the bench, waiting to debut for his new club. Ben White remains injured and absent.
There’s no Ousmane Dembélé for PSG. He’s in the doghouse despite scoring four times in six Ligue 1 matches so far this season. Fortunately for the Parisians, Bradley Barcola has six in six to date. Gianluigi Donnarumma returns in goal having missed the last three matches with a thigh problem.
Team news
Arsenal: Raya, Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori, Saka, Partey, Rice, Martinelli, Havertz, Trossard.
Subs: Neto, Porter, Gabriel Jesus, Kiwior, Jorginho, Merino, Sterling, Kacurri,
Lewis-Skelly, Nwaneri, Robinson, Butler-Oyedeji.
PSG: Donnarumma, Hakimi, Marquinhos, Pacho, Nuno Mendes, Zaire Emery, Vitinha, Neves, Doue, Lee, Barcola.
Subs: Safonov, Tenas, Fabian, Asensio, Muani, Mayulu, Lucas Beraldo, Skriniar, Zague, Naoufel El Hannach, Mbaye.
Referee: Slavko Vincic (Slovenia).
🔴 ⚪️
Unchanged from Saturday’s win against Leicester City ✅
Let’s take it to the next level, Gunners 👊
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) October 1, 2024
Preamble
Arsenal could only manage a draw at Atalanta in their first game in the all-new Champions League mega-table stage. PSG by contrast are coming off the back of a 1-0 win over Girona. But with seven games still to play – and nobody really knows how this will pan out until it does – they’re hardly in must-win territory. So is this a big game or not? In strict dramatic terms, no, not really. But it’s still one of the giants of the English game against the leading team in France, and it’ll feel nice to win, so while there’s no full-blown jeopardy for either side tonight, we’re nevertheless in marker-down territory, where victory allied to an impressive performance will augur well for the long road stretching out ahead. Big game, then? Big enough! Kick-off is at 8pm BST. It’s on.
