Arsenal laboured through the first hour against Lille at the Emirates on Tuesday, then scored three times in eight second-half minutes and won 3-0. Jurrien Timber broke it open, running on to Noni Madueke's pass and dinking the ball over the goalkeeper. Bruno Guimarães then sent Bukayo Saka away down the right, and Eberechi Eze buried the first-time cross with his left foot, helped by a slight nick off a defender. Four minutes later Martin Ødegaard slipped in Kai Havertz, whose cut-back let Saka curl the third into the far corner.
Ødegaard, Saka and Havertz came on for Mikel Merino, Madueke and Viktor Gyökeres straight after the opener. The substitutes had a hand in both goals that followed. Mikel Arteta said his half-time message was mostly that Arsenal "had to increase the technical level", because they'd been giving the ball away too easily against a well-organised side. UEFA's observers named Timber player of the match, arguing that his opener made every later adjustment easier. The order of events backs them up, because the changes that finished Lille off came once Arsenal were ahead.
It's now 12 Champions League wins in a row at the Emirates. Arsenal have conceded only three goals across those games. After the 1-0 win at Napoli on 9 September, they're third in the league phase as of 13 October, level on six points with Barcelona and Sporting CP. Only the top two go into the round of 16 as seeds, which gives the trip to Bayern Munich on 21 October real weight.
After the game Arteta was less cheerful about Piero Hincapié, who'll miss "a matter of weeks" with the ankle injury he picked up in a post-match training session. Martín Zubimendi was hurt in the same session and is "much better". Arteta said he "still has some small feelings" and that it depends on how he handles the pain. Weeks without Hincapié make him hard to picture at the City Ground against Nottingham Forest on 18 October, so Zubimendi's progress is the part of the update Arsenal most needed.
Lille had more joy against Arsenal's under-19s, who lost 3-2.
Arteta dedicated the Lille win to Ken Friar, Arsenal's life president, who has died aged 92. Born in Islington on 13 August 1934, he started working for the club as a 12-year-old in 1946. He succeeded Bob Wall as club secretary in 1973, and Peter Hill-Wood made him managing director in 1983, a job he held until 2000. He and Danny Fiszman steered Arsenal out of Highbury and into the Emirates, which opened in 2006. He left the board in September 2020 with 74 years' service behind him and became life president. Asked in 2012 how Arsenal kept their identity through that move, he said: "It's the people that make the Club."
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