Arsenal rarely needed to get out of second gear as they strolled to a relatively comfortable 2-1 victory over AC Milan in their second fixture of the Dubai Cup.
The possession was Arsenal’s in the opening stages but the Gunners invited plenty of pressure through some sloppy passing out from the back, with Gabriel and goalkeeper Karl Hein almost caught out early on.
Divock Origi nearly opened the scoring for Milan in sensational fashion ten minutes in, turning Rob Holding and unleashing a strike from range which struck the crossbar and went over.
Just as Milan were getting control of proceedings, Martin Odegaard opened the scoring with a direct free-kick which nestled into the bottom corner of Ciprian Tatarusanu’s goal.
Origi should have levelled things up shortly after with a header from a Sandro Tonali cross, but he failed to get his effort on target.
Instead, it was Arsenal who grabbed the game’s second. Reiss Nelson’s deflected strike shortly before the interval wrong-footed Tatarusanu and gave the Gunners a comfortabe lead heading into the break.
After a slow start to the second half, Mohamed Elneny threatened to add a third as his deflected shot, which crashed off Odegaard, looped agonisingly over the bar.
Milan set up a nervy finish to the 90 minutes as Fikayo Tomori leapt highest from a Tonali free-kick to power a header past Hein with around 12 minutes to go.
It was one of very few entertaining moments in the second half, however, and Arsenal strolled to a comfortable victory before turning their attention to the penalty shoot-out for an extra bonus point.
Cedric stepped up first and converted, and the first miss came four penalties in courtesy of Brahim Diaz. Goal after goal followed, before Matt Smith missed Arsenal’s fifth effort to give Milan the chance to tie things up, but Rade Krunic dragged his effort wide to hand the victory to the Gunners.
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GK: Karl Hein – 6/10 – One nervy moment with the ball at his feet early on but had very little to do against a misfiring Milan forward line. Could no nothing about Tomori’s header.
RB: Ben White – 6/10 – Charged forward a lot but ran into the odd cul-de-sac. Didn’t do anything wrong apart from taking an eternity to take a throw-in.
CB: Rob Holding – 5/10 – Given the run-around by Origi in…
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