Misfiring Arsenal beat Napoli with Odegaard stunner in Champions League

Arsenal dominated play but needed a screamer from Martin Odegaard to seal 3 points successful Napoli to unfastened league phase.

Arsenal skipper Martin Odegaard’s sensational precocious onslaught broke stern Napoli absorption arsenic the English champions began their bid for Champions League glory with a hard-fought 1-0 win successful Naples connected Wednesday.

Mikel Arteta’s side, who mislaid to Paris Saint-Germain connected penalties successful past season’s final, spurned respective glorious chances against the well-drilled hosts earlier Odegaard lashed a changeable disconnected the station and successful from the borderline of the country with 15 minutes to go.

Recommended Stories

• list 1 of 4Dortmund’s Karetsas hospitalised aft collapsing successful Champions League match
• list 2 of 4Troubled league LIV Golf files for bankruptcy extortion successful US
• list 3 of 4Shelton shocks Alcaraz successful all-time classical US Open quarterfinal
• list 4 of 4Asian Games athletes forced to evacuate amid grounds rainfall successful Japan

It continued a cleanable commencement to the run for Arsenal, who began their Premier League rubric defence with 3 wins successful a enactment earlier condemning Massimiliano Allegri’s squad to a 3rd consecutive defeat.

Arsenal’s adjacent European trial comes astatine location against Lille connected Tuesday, October 13. Napoli question to Villarreal connected the aforesaid time arsenic they look to bounce back.

Injuries to Scott McTominay and Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa forced Allegri into a midfield reshuffle, with Kevin De Bruyne and Billy Gilmour coming in. Left-back Mathias Olivera was besides selected aft the hosts had fto a two-goal pb gaffe to suffer 3-2 distant to Inter Milan connected Saturday.

Arteta made 4 changes from Arsenal’s 2-1 triumph implicit Chelsea connected Sunday, with Piero Hincapie, Mikel Merino, Eberechi Eze and Viktor Gyokeres earning their archetypal starts of the season.

The hosts acceptable retired to soak up unit and frustrate past season’s runners-up, who struggled to interruption the debased artifact aboriginal connected and were astir caught retired astatine the different extremity erstwhile De Bruyne and Matteo Politano some called goalkeeper David Raya into action.

Arsenal carved retired a large accidental midway done the archetypal fractional erstwhile Merino’s header from 8 yards retired was pushed implicit the barroom by Alex Meret.

The Gunners, who won each 8 of their league signifier games to kick-start their tally to the last past season, continued to probe arsenic Ben White produced a tame decorativeness from a promising presumption earlier Meret scooped a Hincapie cross-shot disconnected his line.

Rasmus Hojlund’s hold-up play was proving a utile limb for Napoli connected the counter, arsenic Politano forced different prevention from Raya.

But it was Arsenal who ended the archetypal fractional feeling they should person been successful front, aft Saka was played done connected extremity and had lone the keeper to beat, lone to assistance a mediocre decorativeness implicit the bar.

Napoli were forced into a goalkeeper alteration during the interval, with Vanja Milinkovic-Savic replacing the injured Meret, but Arsenal picked up wherever they near disconnected arsenic Hincapie wasted different bully accidental by scooping his changeable implicit from 5 yards.

Arsenal continued to sound astatine the doorway to nary avail until the 75th minute, erstwhile in-form Odegaard smashed an unstoppable changeable successful disconnected the station from the borderline of the area, conscionable 3 days aft scoring a winning onslaught against Chelsea.

The visitors had a immense accidental to settee it with 5 minutes to spell erstwhile Noni Madueke had a changeable charged down by Milinkovic-Savic earlier chap substitute Christos Tzolis’s follow-up effort was blocked connected the line.

They were astir made to wage erstwhile a neat passing determination from Napoli near De Bruyne with abstraction successful the box, but the Belgian opted to play a shot crossed an bare 6-yard container alternatively of shooting.

Kai Havertz thought helium had doubled the Gunners’ pb successful stoppage clip with a tap-in from Milinkovic-Savic’s parry, but the offside emblem was up.