Girona 1-2 Arsenal
by Layth Yousif
at Estadio Montilivi

WHILE all the excitable pre-match chatter concerned a certain Aston Villa striker back home, Arsenal staged a pleasing comeback in the beautiful city of Girona to firmly secure their top eight spot in the knock-out stages of the Champions League on Wednesday evening.

With Unai Emery point-blank refusing to talk about Arsenal’s £60 million bid for Ollie Watkins — and Mikel Arteta also playing a dead bat on such speculation after the match — a penalty by the experienced Italian international Jorginho restored parity for Arteta’s visitors when levelling Arnaut Danjuma’s opener.

That was prior to the astonishingly impressive 17-year-old Ethan Nwaneri cutting inside to fire low past Girona keeper Pau Lopez to make it 2-1.

Veteran Bournemouth loanee Neto made Arsenal history as the Gunners’ oldest debutant in 110 years, after David Raya was deemed “not fit,” as the Gunners sealed their expected qualification at the charmingly ramshackle Estadio Montilivi.

After starting the day here in balmy Catalonia, a healthy three points above the cut-off of ninth place, with a better goal difference of seven goals, the Gunners eased through to the last 16, thereby avoiding the unnecessary ordeal of the play-offs next month, as well as the added burden of two extra matches.

Despite Arteta insisting he would be picking a strong team in his pre-match press conference on Tuesday, the canny Gunners boss drafted in Jacob Kiwior, Jorginho, Ethan Nwaneri and Raheem Sterling into his starting XI.

In the opening stages at an atmospheric Montilivi — despite fewer than 10,000 in attendance — Riccardo Calafiori thought he had hit his second Gunners goal in a week, after the Italian slotted the ball through Girona keeper Pau Lopez’s legs, but the offside flag was raised.

That was before Danjuma curled the ball past Neto, as the Estadio Montilivi erupted on 28 minutes.

On 36 minutes, Arsenal were awarded a penalty after Martinez tripped Thomas Partey in the box.

Up stepped Jorginho, who calmly slotted past Lopez to level at 1-1.

Arsenal were far from finished, and six minutes later the precocious Nwaneri cut inside on his left foot to fire into the net for a superbly taken strike to make it 2-1 to the Gunners.

As the club’s loyal travelling support chorused: “He’s one of our own,” to the scarcely-believable 17-year-old.

There was still time for Leandro Trossard to crash the ball against the crossbar as the dominant Gunners went into the break deservedly ahead after Girona’s early scare.

Nwaneri nearly scored again four minutes after the break, when Lopez flapped at his corner, which was inadvertently prevented from going over the line by half-time substitute Jurrien Timber, on for Partey, who by sitting on the bench during the second half indicated that Arteta was simply saving the Ghanaian midfielder for Sunday’s crunch game against Manchester City in north London.

The home side thought they had levelled through 38-year-old Struani, but VAR decreed the veteran’s 77th-minute strike to be disallowed for offside against Portu in the build-up.

There was still time for Sterling to have his late penalty saved by Pau Lopez, after Gunners captain Martin Odegaard handed the Chelsea loanee the ball, as Arteta’s side saw out the match moments later — and qualification to the promised land of the last 16 — without the need for the play-offs.

Arsenal will now face one of the winners of Feyenoord or Juventus vs AC Milan or PSV, which is about as clear as whether the coveted Watkins will join the Gunners this week.