The last time Arsenal won a game by a really big margin, hope was in the air and a season was alive with possibility. Ever since that 5-1 dismantling of Manchester City two months ago, Arsenal have been trending south so this embarrassment of Dutch champions, at the very least, was a large step back in the right direction.
Arsenal were lovely to watch here in Eindhoven against a team that played right in to their hands and finished up humiliated. Come at Arsenal on the front foot and this is what can happen to you. Arsenal love space whether it’s handed to them by City sky blue or PSV red and white. Here there were acres of it and Arsenal gobbled it up.
Young winger Ethan Nwaneri particularly enjoyed it. He was fabulous down the right. Martin Odegaard loved it, too, and scored two second half goals. But it was a night of expression for all of Mikel Arteta’s players who badly needed something to lift them from recent disappointments and now know at least that a place in the last eight of the Champions League will be theirs.
PSV were embarrassing really and should feel that deeply. Some of their supporters looked shamefaced at 5-1. When the sixth went in, many of them went home. There was a fancy dress carnival finishing up outside and some of the locals must have wished they had come here in disguise.
In terms of the goals, Arsenal were three up in 31 minutes through Jurrien Timber, Nwaneri and Mikel Merino. PSV – who had hit the bar with game goalless – did score a penalty just before half-time but goals by Odegaard, Leandro Trossard and Odegaard again threatened to humiliate PSV who were so open out of possession that Arsenal occasionally looked lost as to what to do with some of their numerical overloads.
Eventually they did score again, substitute Riccardo Calafiori running on to Odegaard’s pass in the 86th minute, and up in the gods in the corner, herded behind the plastic Perspex, a group of travelling Arsenal fans started to wonder if it was time to welcome their team back.
Martin Odegaard scored twice as Arsenal put six past PSV in a rampant display by the Gunners
Teenager Ethan Nwaneri scored again in another impressive Champions League performance
PSV Eindhoven were blown away at Philips Stadion and will need a miracle in the second leg
Arteta had chosen not to get involved in the debate about how Arsenal’s opponents would approach this game but suggestions that PSV would get on the front foot and leave themselves open in behind were entirely born out. In an engrossing and entertaining opening half an hour, the Dutch team went blow for blow with Arsenal and almost got knocked out.
Out of the game and almost out of the tie. That was how it looked at least until a penalty just before half-time offered them a route back into things. This was a dream period of play for Arsenal and one that may yet breathe some life in to their season. As for PSV, regardless of their traditions as an attack-minded football club, it all felt rather naïve.
Arsenal scored three times in the opening 31 minutes, thought they should have had a penalty and also had one goal disallowed. That pretty much summed everything up.
The penalty appeal came first, in the tenth minute, when Martin Odegaard went down. He was convinced but replays showed he had kicked the floor when shooting. Soon after that Declan Rice had the ball in the net but was half a yard offside.
Briefly PSV stirred. Up the other end and down the left they went and when Ivan Perisic – once of Tottenham – crossed low, David Raya palmed the ball out and Ismael Sabari crashed it against the bar under pressure from Gabriel from nine yards. Ryan Flamingo volleyed the rebound wide.
It felt like a huge moment and soon it proved to be so. Rice, having a lovely game, turned neatly inside the left edge of the penalty area in the 18th minute and when he dinked a cross to the far post, Timber headed it in. Three minutes later, Arsenal made good their advantage by scoring again. Once more they found space between the PSV lines down the left and this time it was Myles Lewis-Skelly who crossed low for Nwaneri to crash the ball home in unstoppable fashion.
PSV and their boisterous crowd were deflated. There had been optimism beforehand but it had evaporated. Lewis-Skelly was lucky to stay on the field in the 26th minute. Already cautioned for conceding a free-kick, he should really gave walked after bringing down Richard Ledezma a few minutes later. Incredibly, the Spanish referee kept his cards in his pocket.
The Arsenal teenager was substituted for his own good – a smart move – soon after and by then Arsenal were three ahead. This one was a right mess as PSV tried and failed to clear their lines on three occasions. Defender Flamingo was the biggest culprit and his dallying allowed Merino to pass the ball in. After a long VAR check for offside the goal was given.
Jurrien Timber had opened the scoring with a header following a great Declan Rice cross
Odegaard scored the first of two goals within 99 seconds at the start of a rampant second half
Leandro Trossard dinked Walter Benitez brilliantly from close range to complete the double salvo
After Odegaard struck his second of the game Riccardo Calafiori made it 7-1 on 84 minutes
PSV were reeling. Humiliation beckoned. But Arsenal midfielder Thomas Partey offered the home team hope by grabbing Luuk de Jong totally unnecessarily by the neck at a corner. Noa Lang rammed in the penalty and then Guus Til spurned a chance to shake things up further, heading over in the fourth minute of first half added time.
If PSV entertained hopes of a comeback after that, they were dispelled within three minutes of the second half starting. That was how long it took Arsenal to score their fourth and fifth goals.
Both were entirely in keeping with the pattern of the game in that Arsenal were clinical and sharp and PSV were astonishingly compliant.
Odegaard was first to benefit as young Nwaneri put a step=over on Tyrell Malacia – once of Manchester United of course – to cross low. Goalkeeper Walter Benitez could have done anything other than what he did and it would have been a better option. But his weak push at the ball opened the door to Odegaard and with Rice literally pointing the way, he slipped it in to the empty net.
That pretty much ended the tie but Arsenal struck again within a minute. Trossard played a back heel to Riccardo Caliafori on the left side and was allowed to run unchecked 20 yards to take the return pass and beat Benitez as he came out to narrow the angle.
Some PSV supporters were seen laughing out of embarrassment and though their team did their best to come again – Perisic and De Jong bringing sharp saves from Raya – this was now an exercise in reputational preservation for a rather humiliated Dutch team.
