Pre-season friendlies tend to be as reliable as
zodiac signs when it comes to telling the
future but, even with that caveat, Arsène
Wenger was rightfully encouraged by this
exuberant victory. Yaya Sanogo scoring four in
a match after failing to find the net at all last
season looks pretty good as omens go and the
margin of Arsenal’s win was fair reward for a
vibrant attacking performance in which Aaron
Ramsey sparkled and Joel Campbell announced
his return from loan with an artful strike.
“It is very difficult to draw any conclusions
after a game like that. Benfica might be on a
different level of preparation,” Wenger said.
“But for important periods of the game we
played the way we want to play. Our game is
based on movement, technical skill and
togetherness in the final third and that’s what
we did.”
The Emirates Cup, launched seven years ago,
has become a piece of Arsenal heritage, a
summer staple that survives while the club’s
other pre-season traditions are changing:
Arsenal no longer spend the build-up to new
campaigns fretting about whether their squad
will be picked apart by rich predators and
allowing themselves to be linked with stars
they will never lure. A summer spree of over
£60m to date shows that the age of austerity is
over and this display will reinforce the hope
that the club are entering the Era of Wenger’s
Vindication.
The only one of the four major summer
purchases to start here was Calum Chambers,
deployed at centre-back alongside Nacho
Monreal in an experimental defence that
included the 19-year-old Héctor Bellerín at
right-back. That arrangement reflected the low
stakes of the match but a crowd of nearly
60,000 was still treated to a high-paced
spectacle, at least compared with the tame 2-2
draw between Monaco and Valencia earlier.
The shiniest totem of Arsenal’s new power,
Alexis Sánchez, began on the bench but the
£32m capture from Barcelona was acclaimed
like a hero-elect when he came on in the 71st
minute, even if all he showed is that he has
yet to reach full fitness. Wenger says the
Chilean will play for 45 minutes in Sunday’s
match against Monaco as he tries to get up to
speed.
By the time Sánchez was introduced the match
had lost all intensity, Sanogo and Campbell
having upstaged him as Arsenal blew away a
Benfica side who had begun brightly.
The Portuguese exposed uncertainty in
Arsenal’s improvised defence early on, Nico
Gaitán hitting the crossbar from 15 yards.
Campbell and Sanogo squandered good
chances before the Frenchman began atoning
in the 26th minute, converting from close
range after being set up by a beautiful turn
and cross by Ramsey.
In the 40th minute the impressive Bellerín
skedaddled down the right and exchanged
passes with Sanogo before calmly crossing to
Campbell, who placed the ball into the bottom
corner from 15 yards. The Costa Rican then
prodded wide after another sweeping move
but had his wits about him in the 44th minute
when he received a pass from Ramsey and,
rather than shoot, teed up Sanogo to make it
3-0.
With Benfica unravelling in the face of
Arsenal’s passing and movement, Sanogo
completed his hat-trick on the stroke of half-
time, contorting as he wrestled with a
defender to stab a cross from Kieran Gibbs
into the net from five yards.
“That was really the goal of a quality striker,”
said Wenger, who suggested that he expects a
newly confident Sanogo to prove more
effective back-up to Olivier Giroud in the
coming season than he did last term.
“Sanogo was injured for basically two years
before he came to us,” Wenger said. “He came
last year on a free and we worked very hard
for six months with him. From January
onwards he was slowly getting better. Now
that we have worked very hard we want him
to stay.”
Wenger says he also intends keeping
Campbell. “He has a good balance between
individual skill and a collective attitude and
that’s not easy to find.”
Sanogo continued making the case to trust him
by netting his fourth goal just after half-time,
tapping in after Artur spilled a shot from
Ramsey. After many substitutions Benfica
pulled a goal back as Gaitán eluded the
defence to head in from a long throw-in – a no
doubt unnecessary warning for Arsenal fans
not to get carried away.
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