Arsenal vs Como 1-1 — Friendly
Counting the votes…
Arsenal throw it away and survive the shootout
Everyone walked off feeling we had let something slip. Lewis-Skelly punished a poor Butez clearance on 33 minutes, from a Martinelli lay-off, before Baturina slipped past Julienne and Dowman on 43 minutes and found the top corner. Arteta had already reshaped his eleven on the half hour, with Gyokeres and Vieira coming on for Gabriel Jesus and Eze. The second half was played almost entirely in the Como half, with five big chances and ten corners, and Havertz had a stoppage-time goal ruled out for offside. That left the shootout, where Bruno Guimaraes, on at the break to warm applause, scored his before Tzolis finished it (4-3).
Read the pre-match build-up
Fàbregas comes back to the Emirates, the last run-out before Cardiff
Cesc comes home, except that he sits in the away dugout this time, and that alone will give us a strange pang when the teams line up. There is something more urgent on the pitch: we lost to Betis and then to Dortmund, and nobody wants to walk into Sunday's Community Shield carrying that. Fàbregas brings a Como side that arrives in form, unbeaten in four and lifted by its first European campaign. If Bruno Guimarães gets on, we finally get a proper look at him at the Emirates.