Arsenal vs FC Koln recap and analysis from Europa League opener

Arsenal’s match against FC Koln was destined for a great story from before the math even started. Here’s what happened with accompanying analysis.

Normally, these Arsenal match recaps and analysis begin at the opening whistle, but seeing as how FC Koln brought 20,000 screaming fans over from Germany, it has to start there. The Gunner’s Europa League opening match was delayed an hour as riot police had to be called into attempt to restore order and with thousands of Koln supporters cramming the stands, it was always going to be a crazy day.

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Fights between fans erupted immediately throughout the stadium as the stewards were clearly not expecting a German invasion.

From the start, there were questions. With no Reiss Nelson and no Jack Wilshere, two of the main reasons everyone was excited about the Europa League were gone. But there was still plenty of talent and ability to take the fight to the visitors. The problem was that fight was stuffed in a sack an incinerated when David Ospina failed to clear a ball away from well outside of the box and Koln’s Cordoba fired home from 45 yards. Have a look:

While it was certainly quite the finish, it shouldn’t have done the damage that it did. All life that the Gunner’s did have was sucked out of them as they proceeded to show zero urgency for the duration of the first half. No, zero is too much. We will call it negative urgency.

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Theo Walcott and Rob Holding were terrible, Alexis Sanchez couldn’t hit a pass to save his life and the only guy who looked at all upset was Mohamed Elneny, who was left to uphold the central midfield all by himself since Arsene Wenger sent Alex Iwobi out there next to him, who immediately appointed himself another attacking midfielder.

Those first 45 minutes rank up there among the most embarrassing 45 minutes I have ever seen Arsenal play. And it was helped on by the FC Koln fans completely outdoing any actual home fans. The whole thing was awful.

But then the second half happened. And Sead Kolasinac came on and we swapped the 3-4-3 for the 4-4-2. And then this happened:

Everything changed. Things became more natural as players were in natural positions and then this happened:

It didn’t stop there. With the Gunners pelting the opposing goal, Hector Bellerin made it two fullback goals in the 4-4-2 with this rebound effort:

Which sealed the three points. The Gunners had several more chances, but the game was settled. After a horrendous start to the match, they were able to recover for a pretty thrilling win to kick off the Europa League season.