Review – Arsenal supremely dominate Leverkusen in perfect warm up game

Arsenal vs Leverkusen match report

Arsenal faced off against Bayer Leverkusen last night and walked away victorious after a dominant first half of football from the Gunners. After what has been a somewhat disappointing pre-season, Mikel Arteta fielded a strong eleven that dominated the German invincible winning team from last season and had a great game of football. Here’s a run down of everything that happened.

Arsenal started the game off on the front foot, looking in control of the game from the moment it kicked off, having early chances and plenty of possession. It didn’t take long for us to get on the scoresheet with a perfect ball from Kai Havertz to the feet of Oleksandr Zinchenko on the edge of the box to fire towards goal into the bottom right-hand corner of the net to make it 1-0, and put Arsenal well and truly in the driving seat. A great assist from Havertz and a great goal from Zinchenko, silencing his critics from the last few weeks.

Only one minute later and we had found the back of the net again with another lovely team worked goal and was again Havertz who created the chance, picking up his second assist of the night when he spotted Leandro Trossard in the middle of the box and nudged a pass through to him, Trossard faked a shot, knocking the ball onto his preferred right foot, sending the Leverkusen defender the wrong way and calmly placed the ball into the back of the net to make it 2-0.

But we weren’t finished yet, going up to 3-0 in the 38^th minute with another great goal by Gabriel Jesus who brought the ball through the midfield and gave himself enough space to get a shot off, driving it along the ground and into the bottom left-hand corner of the net, beating the keeper with power and pace and putting Arsenal 3-0 up before half time.

The second half started off a lot like the first and Arsenal came out looking confident and with a three-goal cushion, began to enjoy themselves. Arteta looked to his bench and brought on a few players, including Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka who have been on holidays after the euro’s.

Arsenal sealed the game in the 65^th minute when Havertz was involved again, but this time picking up a goal for himself after the ball was squared into the box by Saka on the wing, only for a Leverkusen defender to get a foot to it and put the ball in front of Havertz to tap home and make it 4-0. Another great team goal.

Leverkusen managed to get a goal back in the 76^th minute after catching Arsenal off guard and Nathan Tella managed to put a perfect pass into the feet of Adam Hlozek who knocked the ball past David Raya and into the net to make it 4-1.

A great game of football from Arsenal and a positive match as we look towards the new season. With only one pre-season game to go, these minutes mean a lot to the players and will only prepare them for what is going to be a tough season.

What’s your thoughts Gooners?