Vorskla Poltava v Arsenal: Europa League – live!

60 mins: Zech Medley comes on, making his Arsenal debut in place of Holding.

59 mins: Another Vorskla shot flies well high of goal, though Artur’s 35-yarder was also well wide.

55 mins: Dallku hits a dipping volley from 23 yards, and it would have been an absolute beauty had the goal been another five yards taller.

54 mins: Holding is booked for using his arms when jumping for a header when there were lots of green shirts around.

53 mins: Chance! Willock steals the ball from Artur and plays in Nketiah, whose finish is very weak when he really should have scored.

52 mins: Nketiah runs between two defenders, who pretty much usher him through, but Ramsey is a couple of inches offside when the pass comes.

50 mins: Arsenal look a fine, confident team now. It took a goal or two for the level of their superiority to manifest itself, but it’s now pretty glaring*.

* I apologise in advance for the inevitable Vorskla comeback.

47 mins: Arsenal win a corner, which Holding reaches first and flicks over the bar.

46 mins: Peeeeeep! They’re off! Again!

The players are back out! In other news, Micheal Jacob emails to tell me that Danny John-Jules is Tyreece’s uncle.

“A bit of showbiz trivia for you,” writes Matt Emerson. “Tyreece John-Jules (Arsenal sub tonight) is the son of Danny John-Jules, once of Red Dwarf and recently on Strictly.”

This does appear to be true:

A thoroughly satisfactory half for the away side, who now have 15 minutes of centrally-heated comfort in which to bask in the virtual warmth of a comfortable lead.

45+2 mins: Nothing happened.

45+1 mins: There will only be one minute of stoppage time, unless something exciting happens.

45 mins: Elneny gives the ball away this time, hitting it straight into Kulach who then runs away and, from 25 yards and with just empty grass between him and Petr Cech, wildly miscues a shot into the stands.

Elneny intercepts the ball in midfield and passes swiftly to Willock, who approaches the area and, with Dallku backing off, curls it deliciously inside the far post!

40 mins: Chesnakov manages to trip Maitland-Niles and Ramsey with the same action on the half-way line, a quite spectacular achievement. The referee only gives one free kick.

39 mins: Vorskla win a free-kick on the right, and though it’s not a very good one Smith-Rowe totally slices his clearance and the ball skims off the top of his foot and only just out of the reach of Kolomoets. Cech collects.

36 mins: An early change for Vorskla: Careca, a burly Brazilian striker, is on, and Sapai is off.

33 mins: Now Nketia runs into the area, Shust hares out into no-man’s land and Nketia spots him off his line, gets over-excited and spears a shot wide.

33 mins: From the free-kick Lichtsteiner plays in Willock, who blasts a shot towards the near-post which Shust saves.

32 mins: Now Sharpar is booked, for bringing down Willock from behind, though it seemed unintentional.

29 mins: Skliar runs up and down Vorskla’s right flank fouling people. First Smith-Rowe is left on the floor, and then Maitland-Niles is bundled over. The man is waging a one-man war against the double-barrelled name, but eventually the referee brings his reign of chaos to a close, and also books him.

Ramsey takes a slow, verging on the Pogba-esque run-up before Shust moves slightly to his right, and the ball promptly whistles to his left! Shust is’t happy with the run-up, but the referee ignores his loud complaints.

26 mins: Ramsey dances around the penalty area for a while before running into/being run into by Perduta, and the referee blows his whistle!

25 mins: Arsenal hog the ball for a while, though they spend most of that time passing it across their back line. Finally they push up the left wing, get to the edge of the area, and then turn back and pass it back to their defence again.

23 mins: Maitland-Niles runs into the box, jinks past a defender but a heavy touch sends the ball running into the arms of Shust.

21 mins: There has been a prolonged spell of play inside Arsenal’s half, but never very near their penalty area.

18 mins: Arsenal win a free kick just outside the right-hand corner of the penalty area, and Ramsey shoots over the bar.

17 mins: Qarabag have equalised against Sporting, and as it stands Arsenal will win the group with a game to spare. They now sit five points ahead of Sporting, who were in second place even when I foolishly said they had taken the lead of the group.

15 mins: Close! Sharpar plays in Kulach, but he’s just offside. It’s just as well, as he was running into the area and the situation seemed extremely perilous, though just as the whistle went he threw himself to the ground in an extremely optimistic attempt to win a penalty, so in all likelihood nothing would have come of it.

14 mins: Sapai sends in a tasty cross from the right, but Jenkinson heads clear.

11 mins: Ramsey and Nketiah linked up very nicely on the edge of the area, but the Arsenal man then ran into a couple of defenders, somehow failed to lose the ball, one of them then finally got a toe to it but only sent it running across the area to Emile Smith-Rowe, and he hit it into an unguarded net!

And with shattering inevitability, Arsenal immediately score.

10 mins: Arsenal are yet to achieve much in an attacking sense in this opening period. They have probably had an equal share of possession, but Vorskla are moving the ball quicker and with greater ambition.

8 mins: Meanwhile in tonight’s other Group E game, Sporting have taken an early lead against Qarabag. As it stands the Portuguese team leads the group. UPDATE: This actually wasn’t true even then.

6 mins: More chances! The corner goes to Chesnakov, beyond the far post, who controls and sends in a shot that is so inaccurate it ends up back at the feet of the corner-taker, who sends it back into the area where Chesnakov has a low shot that Cech holds at the second attempt.

5 mins: Now Vorskla win a corner but it could have been more, at least until Jenkinson got ahead of Kulach

3 mins: Chance! It’s played in towards the near post, where Kolomoets gets ahead of Elneny and has a free swing at the ball, which he launches into orbit.

2 mins: An early stoppage while Sklyar receives treatment for an injury sustained while kicking an Arsenal player. The referee gave a free kick for it, though.

1 min: Peeeeeep! The home (well, closer to home) side get the game started.

Ready for kick-off, Arsenal in their traditional red, Vorskla in Watford’s away kit.

And they’re out! Hands shaken, gloves donned, and ready for action.

The players are in the tunnel! It’s a very large, fake-grass-carpeted, expansive one. More of a lounge really, though without the seating options that you normally get in one of those.

Apparently the temperature is going to hit -12C this evening, so it’s just as well the players have packed their snoods.

Unai Emery has a brief pre-match natter:

For us every match is very important, and we are thinking this is one title, and one way for the Champions League. Today, the most important thing is to give chances to players. These players can help us in other matches. We are thinking only to win today.

Head-to-head(ish) latest: Vorskla Poltava have never played an English team (except against Arsenal back in September, when they lost 4-2). Arsenal’s record against Ukrainian sides is just about positive: P11 W5 D2 L4: they are unbeaten at home, but without a win away.

Here they are!

Vorskla: Shust, Perduta, Dallku, Chesnakov, Artur, Sapai, Sklyar, Sharpar, Rebenok, Kulach, Kolomoets. Subs: Tkachenko, Sergiychuk, Mysyk, Nicolas Careca, Chyzhov, Sakiv, Kane.
Arsenal: Cech, Lichtsteiner, Jenkinson, Holding, Maitland-Niles, Guendouzi, Ramsey, Elneny, Willock, Nketiah, Smith-Rowe. Subs: Martinez, Mkhitaryan, Gilmour, Medley, Osei-Tutu, John-Jules, Saka.
Referee: Bartosz Frankowski (Poland).

The Press Association hasn’t yet filed the full teams, but they have filed their reaction to them:

Arsenal handed a first start to teenage striker Eddie Nketiah as Unai Emery made 10 changes for their Europa League clash against Vorskla Poltava in Kiev.

The Group E fixture was moved 185 miles east of Poltava to the capital’s Olympic Stadium with parts of Ukraine under martial law as political tensions continue to rise.

Only Rob Holding kept his place from Sunday’s Premier League win at Bournemouth as 19-year-old Nketiah led the line with fellow academy graduate Joe Willock also given a rare chance to impress. Ainsley Maitland-Niles was also included for his first start since the opening day of the season, while Petr Cech returned in goal to captain the Gunners.

Here’s tonight’s Arsenal team. Full line-ups to follow imminently:

This will-they-won’t-they, where-will-they tie might just prove to be more interesting while the actual football is in progress than it was while the world waited with breath very vaguely baited to see if it was going to happen in the first place. Of all the reasons the football world has ever seen for changing a game’s venue “the sudden introduction of martial law”, which is what Uefa said forced their hand, has to be among the more remarkable – other real-life nominations warmly received – and among the night’s big questions is precisely what percentage of the 70,050-capacity Olimpiyskiy Stadium in Kyiv will be full, given the short notice, the fact that Vorskla are based 350km away in Poltava and that they normally play in a stadium that can host 24,795 people but for the average league game attracts a meagre 3,395, which for context is about 100 more than English fifth-tier side Hartlepool United.

Vorskla were predictably disgruntled about the venue switch, pointing out on Twitter that though they normally play in green and white, their current mood was such that they would be better represented by an extremely weird-looking fox:

Now we must wait to see if they are able to, ahem, outfox a youthful and unfamiliar Arsenal side, which will not include Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Mesut Ozil and Lucas Torreira, who have all stayed at home, but might include Charlie Gilmour, Dejan Iliev, Tyreece John-Jules, Zech Medley, Emile Smith-Rowe, Joe Willock, Jordi Osei-Tutu, Bukayo Saka and Dominic Thompson.

Some of these names will be new to some readers, but fear not. You may know nothing about Zech Medley but here’s a Beck medley, which is almost the same thing: