Our opening sport of our 2024 US Tour resulted in a draw over 90 minutes adopted by a shoot-out win towards Bournemouth in Los Angeles.
Fabio Vieira drilled dwelling a fantastic volley within the seventeenth minute handy us a half-time benefit, however Antoine Semenyo’s deflected shot introduced the Cherries stage on 72 minutes.
Nevertheless an excellent variety of our travelling squad acquired some helpful minutes underneath their belts, as they construct up for our sport towards Manchester United in SoFi Stadium on Saturday. We then ran out 5-4 winners on penalties with Karl Hein the hero, denying the Cherries twice, earlier than Jakub Kiwior stepped as much as convert our sixth penalty.
Fabulous from Fabio
Mikel Arteta opted to begin with a combination of youth and expertise, with Ayden Heaven, Ethan Nwaneri, Salah-Eddine Oulad M’Hand and Myles Lewis-Skelly all given the nod to begin, and all put in strong shows throughout a powerful opening 45 for us.
Regardless of us having fun with nearly all of possession within the early phases, the opening likelihood truly went to the Cherries however Dominic Solanke blasted over when well-placed, nonetheless within the seventeenth minute we made our early dominance pay.
Reiss Nelson was consumed the left flank by Nwaneri, and tricked his well beyond Max Aarons to get to the byline and clip a cross to the again publish. That was the place Vieira was lurking to expertly volley into the underside nook and get our tour off to the proper begin.
Bournemouth had named a powerful facet filled with their Premier League starters, and with extra minutes underneath their belts understandably started to develop into the sport across the halfway level of the primary half and trigger us extra issues.
Romain Faivre went shut when he fizzed a low shot throughout purpose, after which on 35 minutes Solanke appeared destined to attain when he slipped previous Heaven and blasted goalwards, however Karl Hein confirmed glorious reactions to flick the ball onto his crossbar, and ensured we took our lead into the break.
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Bournemouth battle again
Mikel opted to make only one alteration to his line-up on the interval, with skipper Martin Odegaard being launched and simply after the hour mark, and after a quiet opening quarter-hour of the second half that solely noticed one other Solanke shot fly into the group, seven extra gamers had been launched by the boss, together with our quartet of Euro 2024 stars.
The injection of contemporary legs sparked the sport again into life, and Hein needed to be at his greatest when a neat flick from Daniel Jebbison despatched Dango Ouattara by way of on purpose however the Estonia stopper stayed large and made the block, earlier than Odegaard whipped a free-kick goalwards that Neto pushed round his publish.
However on 72 minutes the Cherries restored parity. Semenyo gained possession off Omar Rekik and charged forwards, and noticed a speculative try deflect off Ben White and loop in the direction of the highest nook, and this time there was nothing Hein might do to forestall it from discovering the web.
With seven minutes remaining it appeared as if we’d edge again in from when a fantastic Odegaard cross slipped in Leandro Trossard who twisted and turned within the space to get a shot off, however Neto blocked along with his ft to disclaim us a win.
Heroics from Hein
Though the sport resulted in a draw after 90 minutes, it was determined upfront {that a} penalty shoot-out would happen whatever the scoreline.
Semenyo and Odegaard stepped up first and each discovered the underside left nook, earlier than Hein produced an excellent save to disclaim Philip Billing at full stretch. Alex Zinchenko then fired into the underside left nook handy us the benefit.
Ouattara, Jorginho and Adam Smith scored the following three penalties, however Trossard’s pushed effort bounced again off the publish which means we had been stage heading into the fifth spherical of penalties.
Jebbison scored with a strong effort, earlier than Gabriel Jesus emphatically took the shoot-out to sudden loss of life.
Filled with confidence from his spectacular shot-stopping efficiency on the night time, Hein produced one other spectacular save to disclaim Ryan Christie down low, earlier than Jakub Kiwior stepped as much as discover the underside left nook and ship Neto the flawed approach, wining the shoot-out.
What’s subsequent
We stay in Los Angeles however head to SoFi Stadium to tackle Manchester United on Saturday – tickets are nonetheless obtainable or you should buy a Match Go to look at the motion reside on Arsenal.com and the official app.
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