Arsenal took a significant step towards the knockout stages of the Champions League with a 1-0 win at Marseille.
Stoppage-time Ramsey strike puts Arsenal on track for last 16
Amid their ongoing domestic problems, Arsenal took a significant step towards the knockout stages of the UEFA Champions League while Arsene Wenger went some way to settling an old score with a 1-0 win at Marseille.
It was far from a classic in France, where the Gunners have never lost, but, although not a spectacular finish, substitute Aaron Ramsey's injury-time winner is one of the highlights of Arsenal's disappointing season to date.
They continue to look more at home in Europe. The cruel, late draw at Borussia Dortmund on Matchday One and the most-recent win over Olympiakos set the platform for victory over Didier Deschamps' Marseille, who had not previously conceded in the Champions League this season.
Against an albeit equally out-of-sorts Marseille, Arsene Wenger's Arsenal displayed the sort of grit that has been missing in such Premier League defeats as the humiliation against Manchester United.
They now lead Group F by one point ahead of a home meeting with the French club at Emirates Stadium in just under a fortnight.
Wenger was also back in the dugout after his two-game touchline ban from Uefa, but he was making another return having confessed before flying out of London he had not been to the city of Marseille since leaving French football in 1994.
The Strasbourg-born 61-year-old had spoken passionately about the love of football in the south of France and described Marseille as '
the football city' in his homeland, but the Stade Velodrome club are also a sore spot.
Wenger has intimated in the past his Monaco, who finished second to Marseille in 1991 and 1992, were among the greatest victims of the match-fixing scandal which rocked football and saw former Marseille president Bernard Tapie sent to prison.
Regimes have changed. But the Arsenal boss, who left Monaco for a year in Japan, may have had revenge in mind and the four-point tally targeted from the Marseille double-header now seems a minimum expectation.
Things did not start in an ideal fashion. Alex Song went in Slovenian referee Damir Skomina's book in just the fourth minute after the midfielder's heavy touch led to a rash challenge on Loic Remy.
But soon after Van Persie went close to getting a meaningful header on the end of a Theo Walcott cross, although he would have been denied by an offside flag, and Marseille responded through a Mathieu Valbuena volley, which had Wojciech Szczesny scrambling.
Noisy
Carl Jenkinson, who again started in place of the injured Bacary Sagna, was fortunate in the 14th minute to not give away a penalty, as the 19-year-old's arm blocked an Andre Ayew cross. The former Charlton teenager appeared to have time to move the offending limb.
Ayew, reportedly an Arsenal transfer target, despite Wenger's claims to the contrary, was furious with referee Skomina and talked himself into a yellow card, with Andre Santos swiftly joining him in the book for a body-check on Valbuena.
It was a niggling start in front of a characteristically atmospheric Stade Velodrome, which maintained its noisy reputation amid ongoing reconstruction work, which has temporaritly restricted capacity to 33,000, but is required in preparation for the finals of Euro 2016.
The home fans, though, had their hearts in their mouths in the 21st minute, as Van Persie saw a header from a Mikel Arteta corner cleared off the goal-line by Souleymane Diawara.
If Arsenal's Premier League form has been a poor, their hosts' domestic displays have been wretched. Deschamps' team sit 15th in Ligue 1 after winning just one league match in 10.
But the French club sat top of Group F ahead of kick-off against Arsenal having won at Olympiakos on Matchday One before cleverly picking off Dortmund in an exhibition of counter-attacking football.
And Marseille's attempts to sucker-punch Arsenal resulted in what was developing into an open encounter, as Wenger's visitors adhered to the continental blueprint of disciplined breaks that almost saw them to victory over Dortmund.
Arsenal fans were again left willing the return from injury of Thomas Vermaelen, who this week signed a contract extension until 2015, when Remy nutmegged Per Mertesacker and Jenkinson in the space of seconds. Vermaelen is expected to be fit in around three weeks.
But Wenger, returning to France with his club for the first time since winning at Auxerre in 2002/03, saw his team arrive at half-time with the deadlock intact, although Santos was fortunate not to be shown a second booking on the stroke of half-time for handball.
Wenger had targeted four points from the double-header with Marseille and so will have been content. The French club visit Emirates Stadium on 19th October.
Pain
Arsenal suffered last season from making a mess of the group stages to finish as runners-up to Shakhtar Donetsk. It resulted in a last-16 meeting with Barcelona and a hurtful defeat to Pep Guardiola's eventual kings of Europe.
The only person in pain at the start of the second half was Andrey Arshavin after the Russian took a shoulder in the face from Diawara, which earned the Senegalese defender a booking.
Marseille continued to invite Arsenal to attack in the hope it would allow room for their own forward breaks, but the Gunners were not taking advantage and Arshavin and Walcott were both guilty of failing to supply service to Van Persie.
Shortly before the hour mark, a Alou Diarra cross caused mass panic in the Arsenal box and a combination of Mertesacker and Jenkinson managed to block before Song was incredibly fortunate when ludicrously attempting to dribble his way out of a congested 18-yard box.
Jenkinson took a whack to his right knee in the melee and having initially damaged the area in the first half he was unable to carry on. Johan Djourou was the replacement, as the Switzerland international marked his own return from injury.
Walcott had a glorious chance to put Arsenal in front, but Nicolas N'Koulou's last-gasp challenge made just enough of an impact to knock the England international off balance and he shot at Marseille goalkeeper Steve Mandanda's feet from close-range.
It was Walcott's last contribution. Gervinho, a £10.5million July signing from last season's Ligue 1 champions, Lille, came on to a chorus of whistles. Soon after, Marseille replaced Remy with Andre-Pierre Gignac.
The earlier decision-making of Song was a reflection of the defensive uncertainty which has haunted Arsenal this season. But Wenger's men were the better team in the second half.
Twelve minutes after his introduction, Djourou became the third Arsenal player on the night to be shown a yellow card. Referee Skomina harshly adjudged the defender had fouled Jeremy Morel.
Wenger made his final substitute in the 78th minute by inviting Ramsey to also make his return from the injury which ruled him out of Sunday's win over Sunderland.
The Wales captain came on in place of Arshavin and made the most of the opportunity by capping an Arsenal break in two minutes of stoppage time to fire Wenger's men top of Group F.
| Marseille |
Team Statistics |
Arsenal |
| 0 |
Goals |
1 |
| 0 |
1st Half Goals |
0 |
| 2 |
Shots on Target |
5 |
| 4 |
Shots off Target |
1 |
| 1 |
Blocked Shots |
0 |
| 1 |
Corners |
9 |
| 14 |
Fouls |
13 |
| 4 |
Offsides |
4 |
| 3 |
Yellow Cards |
3 |
| 0 |
Red Cards |
0 |
| 81.3 |
Passing Success |
84.8 |
| 22 |
Tackles |
22 |
| 72.7 |
Tackles Success |
81.8 |
| 45 |
Possession |
55 |
| 51.8 |
Territorial Advantage |
48.2 |
| 438 |
Total Passes |
521 |
| 21 |
Total Crosses |
31 |
| 145 |
Lost Balls |
162 |
| 51 |
Recoveries |
60 |
|
