Arsenal benefited from Mikel Arteta’s lack of planned substitutions on Tuesday night, beating Atletico Madrid 4-0 and continuing their perfect record in the Champions League.
Mikel Arteta has admitted he was looking to replace Miles Lewis-Skelly before the Arsenal left-back scored a stunning assist to lead his side to a 2-0 victory over Atletico Madrid.
On Tuesday night, the Gunners scored four goals in 13 minutes of the second half to win 4-0 in the Champions League. Gabriel Magalhães took the lead with a header from a Declan Rice corner, before a driving run and a weighted pass from Lewis Skelly allowed Gabriel Martinelli to curl within moments.
Víctor Gökeres then stabbed home a third from a deflection, ending a 624-minute goal drought, and grabbed another with a close-range finish from a corner kick. As a result, Arsenal, who currently lead the Premier League, are assured of their third consecutive win without conceding a goal in the Champions League.
After the match, Arteta was asked in an interview with Prime Video whether he had intended to use Riccardo Calafioli in place of Lewis Skelly when he scored the crucial second goal. “That’s football, yes,” he replied with a smile. “We had to make other changes because we have other players to manage.”
read more: Victor Goqueres shines as Arsenal beat Atletico Madrid – 5 talking pointsread more: Marcus Rashford proves Ruben Amorim wrong and sends a clear message to Manchester United
Academy product Lewis-Skelly made his breakthrough for Arsenal last season but has found it difficult to start this year with Calafioli preferred at left-back. However, he was given a chance to shine against Atleti and took it, eventually playing the full 90 minutes.
Asked about Lewis-Skelly, who assisted Martinelli’s goal, Arteta added: “That’s who he is. That’s his quality, the way he carries the ball, his ability to release the ball at the right time. He was great today. It was really good to see the changes in those two (Lewis-Skelly and Martinelli) and the impact they had on the team.”
The main talking point for Arsenal was Gokeres, who scored two goals in two minutes to end a nine-game scoreless streak for club and country. Arteta felt the £64m summer signing deserved good fortune, even though his first shot was deflected into the far corner of the goal.
“I’m happy that he is so well deserving of the award. His work rate and everything he brings to the team is outstanding and he is well deserving of the award,” he said. “The demands he places on himself are very high, but we value the team very much, and you can see that in the reaction of his teammates today. We hope this is the start of a beautiful series.”
There was also praise for Rice, who set up Gabriel’s first goal, converted the center back again from a corner kick, and finally set up Gokeres for the fourth goal. “It was great,” Arteta said of the set-piece delivery.
“We could have scored in the first half, but we have the ability to score those types of goals and we have a lot of different players scoring goals. We want to continue to improve.”
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