3 min: Maitland-Niles flies down the right and sends over a decent cross. It’s put behind for a corner. Ruiz heads it away at the near post.
2 min: Kolasinac curls a low pass forward for Aubameyang to chase. Maximovic ties to shepherd it through to the keeper but Meret has no interest in claiming it and remains rotted to his line. Maximovic has to take possession and clear, then rebukes his keeper.
As Napoli’s players walk by and shake the hands of their hosts, it becomes clear exactly how tiny Insigne is. Officially his height is 1m63cm but he looks much smaller than that.
The teams are in the tunnel. Napoli are kitted out all in black, save for blue rings around their shoulders. Arsenal are in their customary home clobber. Incidentally, isn’t slightly surprising in this day and age that Petr Cech has never pimped his head gear.
“This is certainly Napoli’s biggest game this year after facing Liverpool and PSG,” announces Colum Fordham. “Hopefully, as I live in Naples and have become a bona fide fan of the Azzuri, Mertens or Milik will score a precious away goal and make life tough for the Gunners. The whole city will go berserk if Napoli get a result.” They will get a result. It might be a defeat, but it will be a result.
You’re right to mention Milik – he’s lovely player and it’s quite surprising that he’s on the bench, with Insigne starting instead. But there’s a fair chance of him coming off to score later on.
“Hello Paul, my name is Joseph,” writes a man called Joseph. “My request to you is to shoot from distance today. We need goals please.” Right. I’ll be sure to do that. But are you perhaps confusing me with Mesut Ozil?
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“The Three Tenors they a’int, but this Napoli assignment is still precisely the type of tie that Unai Emery needs to win if he’s to get some of the Gooner faithful to stop texting the ‘clown’ emoji aside his name,” reckons Grant Tennille. “Should Insigne tap into a bit of the Italian Renaissance® that’s seen the Azzurri light up the scoreboard recently we could be in for an engaging match indeed. And let’s not forget that English club sides do have a bit of hoodoo going for them when facing teams from The Boot. Or am I just applying selective memory to the past 20 years or so?” Well, Napoli have never won in England, nor even Wales (drawing in Swansea in 2014).
“Look at those badges,” booms Matt Dony. “Arsenal v Netscape Navigator. A meeting of two giants.”
Unai Emery’s pre-match thoughts
“We want to control the game against a team who have very good players. They have many offensives players who can make runs behind us so we need to control the spaces and the match … Tactically it’s going to be an interesting match.” Martin Keown, meanwhile, says Napoli won’t be able to handle the front pair of Aubameyang an Lacazette. Kalidou Koulibaly’s reply to that will be interesting.
Teams
Arsenal: Cech; Sokratis, Koscielny, Monreal; Maitland-Niles, Torreira, Ramsey, Ozil, Kolasinac; Aubameyang, Lacazette
Subs: Leno, Mustafi, Elneny, Iwobi, Guendouzi, Suarez, Mkhitaryan
Napoli: Meret; Hysaj, Maksimovic, Koulibaly, Rui; Callejon, Allan, Ruiz, Zelinski; Insigne, Mertens
Subs: Ospina, Malcuit, Ounas, Ghoulam, Chiriches, Younes, Milik
Referee: A Mallenco (Spain)
Preamble
Hello and welcome to Arsenal’s toughest match yet in their quest for Europa League supremacy. Napoli have been in ropey domestic form of late but are still one of the trickiest opponents that Arsenal could have been pitted against. Carlo Ancelotti’s men are the highest-ranked of the sides who dropped out of the Champions League; they finished the group stages of that competition level with Liverpool on points and goal difference but were squeezed out on goals scored. The Italians suffered a fright in the last round of this tournament but only because they took their foot off the pedal after romping into a 4-0 aggregate lead over RB Salzburg. Arsenal, meanwhile, made life difficult for themselves by flopping to a first-leg defeat in Rennes before storming back to advance. Their away form remains dreadful domestically so there is a little reason to be confident of them overturning a a bad result here at the Emirates by winning in Italy – it is important, then, that they do the business today. Hopefully Unai Emery will see things like that and go full gun for a commanding win. If so, we could be in for a treat today. Let’s be having you!
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