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Arsenal made home ground advantage count in its 3-0 win over Real Madrid.
In the build-up to Arsenal's clash with Real Madrid in the Champions League, we spoke at length regarding how important it was for the Gunners to take something positive from the game.
With the second leg set to be the ultimate test of everything Arsenal is made of, the first leg at the Emirates was the perfect chance to make sure they went into the second leg with something to cling to.
And they put forth what we have seen described as the best 90 minutes of football under Mikel Arteta as the Gunners blew the Spanish champs off the Emirates pitch.
Gunners made use of home ground advantage
Three second-half goals, two of which came off the boot of Declan Rice as the midfielder scored two stunning free kicks to put the Gunners up 2-0 inside of 12 second-half minutes.
Then, a mere five minutes later, perhaps the biggest and most important goal was scored by Mikel Merino to give Arsenal a 3-0 lead and a big injection of confidence to take into the second leg at the Santiago Bernabéu.
But make no mistake, the home crowd certainly played a factor.
“Even when we were in the coach, just before going to the stadium, we saw the fans, there were a lot of them,” Saliba said via arsenal.com. “It gave us a lot of confidence when you have your fans behind you like this especially in this big game in the Champions League, you have to be good. It's because of them, we played so well, they pushed us and we did well."
Arsenal had an advantage, and it made full use of it with the club now three goals ahead on aggregate.
So it is a great position to be in with the Gunners now entering the second leg witha serious buffer, but they will enter without the comfort of a raucous home crowd pushing them to new heights.
They are on the other side of it now, and an away trip to Madrid is one of the most daunting trips in world football, and that is something Arsenal will no taste firsthand.
Real know they must come out swinging, and the Gunners, who did some swinging of their own in the first leg, must be careful not to get caught with an early haymaker; otherwise, the home ground advantage Madrid will have could be the catalyst in what would be an almighty comeback.