Arsenal 5-3 Barcelona – 3 talking points as Gunners down Barca at SoFi

Arsenal defeated Barcelona 5-3 at SoFi Stadium to complete its US Tour with a win. First-half goals from Bukayo Saka and Kai Havertz sent the Gunners on their way, with Leandro Trossard’s double and a Fabio Vieira thunderbolt in the second half enough to secure the win.

Arsenal ended its preseason tour of the United States with a 5-3 win over Spanish champions Barcelona.

In what was a feisty contest in the first half, the Gunners were the better side, but two mistakes from Martin Odegaard gifted Barca two goals.

Bukayo Saka and Leandro Trossard were lively, with Saka opening the scoring for Arsenal and Kai Havertz netting before halftime.

The second half was all Arsenal as the game was largely in control, with Barca making sweeping changes.

Trossard grabbed himself a second-half double, and Fabio Vieira scored a thunderbolt from outside the box to give Arsenal a nice win to end the tour.

The game provided plenty of talking points; here they are.

Self-inflicted wounds appear yet again

One of the themes building this preseason has been the individual mistakes from Arsenal players leading to goals, and against Barcelona, two Martin Odegaard “mistakes” gifted them two goals.

A poor giveaway led to Barca’s first goal as Raphinha drove into the box had shot before Lewandowski slotted home the rebound.

Then when in the wall for a Raphinha free kick, Odegaard turned his body as the ball was struck; it hit the Norwegian in the shoulder and went past Ramsdale. While that was unlucky, commentators did say had Odegaard remained square onto the ball, that it wouldn’t have taken such a deflection.

While both aren’t the end of the world, it will be those small details that Mikel Arteta will want to get cleaned up.

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