Arsenal 4-1 Galatasaray: 5 things we learnt

Arsenal's Danny Welbeck celebrates scoring their fourth goal and completing his hat-trick
Well that turned out to be relatively easy, didn't it?

Arsenal bounced back from defeat in their opening Champions League game against Dortmund on Wednesday night, seeing off Galatasaray with plenty to spare.

Here's what we learnt from the game:

1. Whoever designed that Galatasaray kit deserves a medal
There was a time, four or five years ago, when every Ligue 1 kit designed by Adidas was a festival of jagged lines, garish colours and lightning strikes. They must have decided to do the French teams late on a Friday evening, perhaps even after Weekly Drinks. "Another neon purple dot on this sleeve?" "Yeah man, and hand me another beer."
We can only assume that those geniuses have since transferred to Nike, because tonight's Galatasaray kit was something else. Superb work.

Wait, we could fit some zebra stripes onto the sleeves here
2. Arsene Wenger has a wry sense of humour
So you fail to sign a top-class defensive midfielder for the, oh, 300th transfer window in a row. Then, true to form, pretty much every player who can play in that position gets injured early in the season. Arteta: injured. Ramsey: injured. Wilshere: a bit injured (albeit on the bench). Diaby: don't even.

When the XI for this game was announced, most sane people assumed it would be Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain doing a shift in the engine room alongside Mathieu Flamini. But Arsene Wenger had other ideas. Instead, it was Santi Cazorla – tiny, technical Santi Cazorla – who started deeper than usual, dropping in to defend when Arsenal lost possession.

With every passing year, Wenger just gets more Wenger. Sometimes it's like he's picking his side based entirely on in-jokes these days.

This, in case you were in any doubt, can only be a good thing.


Alexis Sanchez reacts to the team news before the game
3. Danny Welbeck CAN finish
Many column inches have been devoted to the finishing ability of Daniel Nii Tackie Mensah Welbeck in the last few months. The scepticism in some quarters is understandable, of course: the former Manchester United man has yet to truly convince as an out-and-out goalscorer, even with the mitagating circumstances – rotation, being played out of position – taken into account.

Yet here was a pretty convincing riposte to his critics. Welbeck was superb at the Emirates, terrorising the away defence with his pace and – crucially – keeping his head when the opportunities arose. Indeed, there was something distinctly Thierry Henry-esque about his strikes: placement favoured over power, a modicum of style about proceedings.

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