Arsenal maintained their perfect start to the Champions League with a comfortable 3–0 win over Slavia Prague, thanks to Bukayo Saka’s first-half penalty and a second-half brace from Mikel Merino.
The victory made it ten wins in a row and secured an eighth consecutive clean sheet – equalling a club record that has stood since 1903. To cap the night, Mikel Arteta handed a debut to Max Dowman, who, at 15 years, 10 months and 4 days, became the youngest player ever to appear in the Champions League.
“I’m very happy obviously with the win, four in a row without conceding a goal. It’s a really tough place to come.
“I told the boys the game that we had to expect – a team that is super intense, very direct, man to man, some very short sequences of play, a lot of fouls, a lot of restarts and very difficult to get any fluency in the match, but if we are patient and emotionally controlled, we’re going to have our chances with the way they set up. And we did that.
“I think the margin at the end, it looked comfortable, but I don’t think it was a comfortable match at all.
“And not only the win [made me happy], but also the fact that we had some players that haven’t played much, playing, performing really well.
“Mikel [Merino] stepping up as a nine and scoring two goals. Max making his debut, probably the youngest ever and Andre [Harriman-Annous] as well – so a lot of positives tonight.”
With seven players out injured and Slavia unbeaten at home since December 2024, this was an impressive and composed performance from the Gunners, particularly from Merino, who once again, proved himself a very capable auxiliary striker.
“It’s a joy to have him, I always say the same thing,” reflected Arteta.
“It’s his versatility on the pitch, the things that he can do. It’s his mindset, it’s his leadership. It’s the way he is as a person. And today we are missing a lot of attacking players and we have to find different solutions. He comes in in the Champions League and scores two goals.”
As for Dowman, who got 20 minutes at the end of the game, earning his debut in the competition, the manager beamed with pride.
“He comes in, the first ball he takes, he takes people on. He starts to dribble, gets a foul. That’s personality, that’s courage. You cannot teach that.
“You have it or you don’t. It doesn’t matter what his passport says. You throw him in this context, and he’s ready to adapt and have a good performance.”
Top of the Premier League, a 100 per cent record in Europe, and into the Carabao Cup quarter-finals, it’s been an impressive start to the season for the Gunners, who’ve built their reputation on set-piece prowess and a scarcely believable defensive record. Hopefully, Jimmy Ashcroft, who kept eight clean sheets in a row across the 1901/02 and 1902/03 seasons, doesn’t mind sharing the club record with David Raya.
“Well, that [record] is a long time ago. It tells you about the difficulty of achieving it. There is a lot of work there obviously, to achieve that.
“The most pleasing thing probably is not the record, it’s the mindset of the players. They are talking there about how we can still do better. There were one or two situations that we could have resolved better.
“If we do that, we can be improving, and that record will have a bigger meaning.”
If the current squad want to own that record outright, they’ll have to keep Sunderland at bay on Saturday. The turnaround time is tight, but the rewards potentially huge, especially with Manchester City and Liverpool facing each other on Sunday.
The post “A tough place to come” – Arteta reacts to win over Slavia Prague appeared first on Arseblog News – the Arsenal news site.
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