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MOTD- Arsenal 2-0 Napoli

By on October 1, 2013

Arsenal found a reward for their brilliant first-half performance against a dreary Napoli in Champions League Group F, with a 2-0 win in London taking Arsene Wenger’s men top of the group.  Mesut Ozil shined on the night along with Olivier Giroud, unlike the entire Napoli side, which lacked anything to do with creativity.

Rafa Benitez’s side even had a bad start to the match, while Arsenal circulated the ball nicely and threatened in the opening minutes.  The home side penned Napoli into their own half, and deservedly grabbed the lead after only eight minutes when Olivier Giroud dinked a Bacary Sagna pass into the path of Aaron Ramsey down the right flank.  Ramsey stormed into the Napoli box from the right before squaring it to Mesut Ozil, who placed a powerful shot past Pepe Reina into the corner of the net.

Riding on the back of their opener Arsenal looked unstoppable, doubling their lead in the fifteenth minute through Giroud.  A failed Napoli clearance fell to Ozil on the right and the German skipped towards the byline, before cutting it across to Giroud at the near post.  Giroud coolly tapped it into the back of the net, but Napoli soon found their way back into the match with Miguel Britos heading a corner just over the crossbar.

Yet Arsenal still completely outclassed their opponents as the match rolled onto the second half, the game lost a bit of it’s sting, although Arsenal came close to going 3-0 just after the break, only for Tomas Rosicky to whiff a low Giroud cross three-yards out from goal.  Wenger’s side then forced a wonderful save out of Reina as Mikel Arteta flicked a Ozil cross from the right towards the back post, where Laurent Koscielny slammed a volley towards goal, which Reina somehow parried out with a superb reaction save.

Napoli began to look tired, and despite bribing on Colombian forward Duvan Zapata in an attempt to carry more of an attacking threat Benitez’s side could not find so much as a consolation goal before the final whistle blew at the end of a minute of stoppage time.
Man of the Match: Mesut Ozil

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.