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Western Sydney Wanderers
Pre-season Friendlies
Jul 15, 2017 at 11am UK
 
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1-3

Lustica (58')
FT(HT: 0-3)
Giroud (33'), Ramsey (37'), Elneny (45')

Arsenal ease to victory over Western Sydney Wanderers

Arsenal ease to win over Western Sydney
© SilverHub
Three first-half goals help Arsenal to a 3-1 win over Western Sydney Wanderers in front of 83,000 spectators at the ANZ Stadium in Australia.

Arsenal rounded off their tour Down Under with a straightforward 3-1 win over Western Sydney Wanderers at the ANZ Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

The Gunners netted three times in the space of 12 first-half minutes and, despite seeing their opponents pull one back before the hour, were able to comfortably see things through.

Olivier Giroud, Aaron Ramsey and Mohamed Elneny all found a way through for the visitors, making it two wins from two in Australia prior to jetting off to the Far East for friendlies against Bayern Munich and Chelsea over the next seven days.

Picking up from where he left off against Sydney FC two days ago, when coming off the bench to net on his debut, Alexandre Lacazette shimmied his way into a shooting position with just two minutes on the clock.

The Frenchman was kept out by Vedran Janjetovic, who would go on to pick the ball out of his net three times during a one-sided first half in Sydney.

For all of Arsenal's dominance they were unable to create too many chances in the opening half-hour, however, with their opponents working hard to keep things tight.

That all changed once Giroud opened the scoring 33 minutes in, converting from a few yards out when spotted by Nacho Monreal, who linked up well with Lacazette to create some space for the breakthrough moment.

Monreal claimed an assist for the second goal, too, this time from much deeper as his ball over the top was latched on to by Ramsey, allowing the Welshman to loft the ball over a stranded Janjetovic.

Wanderers were struggling to really get at their opponents, but they did have a shout for a penalty rejected when Roly Bonevacia was sent to the ground by makeshift centre-back Elneny.

The Gunners were never truly troubled, though, and they had a third before the opening 45 minutes were out thanks to a heavily deflected Elneny shot, seeing the ball come off Brendan Hamill and fly past Janjetovic.

Arsenal came within inches of scoring a fourth of the afternoon early in the second half, with Elneny's shot this time crashing back off the underside of the crossbar.

Ainsley Maitland-Niles then saw a shot deflect into the hands of Janjetovic, but it was no longer all one-way traffic as the hosts started to grow into the contest.

They had a lifeline just short of the hour mark after Steven Lustica smashed the ball into the roof of the net from close range, having been awarded an indirect free kick following David Ospina's decision to pick up a back-pass.

Jack Clisby had hit the bar in the build-up to that incident as the momentum began to swing in Sydney's favour, but substitute Oriol Riera's curled shot on target was as close as they came to a second in front of the 83,000 spectators in attendance.

Gunners boss Arsene Wenger completely changed his outfield side for the final 20 minutes, as was the case in the 2-0 win over Sydney FC on Thursday, and one those replacements nearly made a telling difference as Theo Walcott's shot tested Janjetovic.

Arsenal came closest to netting a fifth of the afternoon through a Mesut Ozil free kick, which was sent over the wall but came back off the frame of the goal, before Edward Nketiah struck the post with his shot on the spin late on.

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