Mikel Arteta could hardly have dreamed of a smoother return to Champions League football. Arsenal are through to the last 16 and, although the spring will surely offer stiffer tests than a weak Group B that they have won with a game to spare, a run to the latter stages will be distinctly possible should they remain this clinical.
Lens were dispatched brutally with five first-half goals, Kai Havertz starting the rout before Gabriel Jesus, Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Martin Ødegaard all joined in. Almost everything they hit went in, allowing the well-deserved luxury of a somnolent second half enlivened by Jorginho’s late VAR-awarded penalty.
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