Barnet 0 Arsenal 4

Scorers: Arshavin 2, Simpson 16, 45, Nasri 75

Arsenal named a 22-man squad to face Barnet in this annual pre-season curtain raiser. Of the 22, Lukasz Fabianski, Harvard Nordtveit, Thomas Vermaelen, Laurent Koscielny, Armand Traore, Emmanuel Frimpong, Tomas Rosicky, Jack Wilshere, Andrey Arshavin, Jay Simpson and Jay Emmanuel-Thomas started in the first of seven pre-season fixtures. Nordtveit, whose preferred position is centre half, started at right back as new signing Koscielny was paired up with Vermaelen at centre half.

Kick off was delayed by ten minutes adding to the anxiety of waiting for some decent football to be played, but when the game did kick off, Arshavin did not take long to unlock the Barnet defence at the Underhill. Arshavin was up to his usual tricks and a neat one-two between him and, stand in captain, Rosicky put Arshavin through on goal. Arshavin made no mistake sending Barnet keeper, Jake Cole, the wrong way for an easy tap in to open the scoring after just 90 seconds. One-nil to the Arsenal!!

Arsenal, missing World Cup participants and first team regulars Fabregas, van Persie, Vela, Song, Diaby, Gallas, Clichy, Sagna, Bendtner and Eboue started brightly and had the travelling Gooners in good spirits and in good voice and things only got better with Jack Wilshere impressing while pulling the strings from midfield.

Jay Emmanuel-Thomas made space for himself in the fifth minute and sent in a bullet of an attempt off his left foot, which forced the Barnet keeper into a brilliant save.

On the 16^th minute, Wilshere setup Jay Simpson to double Arsenal’s lead with the Barnet defence failing to deal with Wilshere’s mazy run into the box from the right-hand side. Simpson ended up with the easiest of shots on goal.

Vermaelen saw his effort cleared off the line, while Wilshere shot wide and Arshavin’s effort hit the bar all before Simpson added a third just before halftime. Arshavin and Wilshere combining well down the left channel to setup Simpson to double his tally.

As is often the case with these friendly matches, the team that took the field in the second half was completely different from the first with Vito Manonne, Ignasi Miquel, Johan Djourou, Kieran Gibbs, Craig Eastmond, Samir Nasri, Conor Henderson, Henri Lansbury, Nacer Barazite, Theo Walcott and new signing Marouane Chamakh getting a run out.

Walcott and Barazite tested the keeper in the opening minutes as Arsenal carried on from where they left. The tempo of the game dipped as the half went on though and the Arsenal backline comfortably dealt with anything Barnet had to offer in front of the 5000 strong crowd. Walcott, however, did manage to test the Barnet keeper before a major blunder from the Barnet defence let Nasri clean through to score. Barnet centre half Daniel Leach failed to control an innocuous back pass allowing Nasri to nip in.

Lansbury’s reverse ball almost setup Barazite late on before the 90 were up.

For all their endeavor, Barnet failed to seriously test the Arsenal back-line, which had 3 different keepers (as Wojciech Szczesny was subbed in for Mannone midway through the second half) during the match.

Arshavin was officially named the man of the match but most of the youngsters made a good showing of it and it has to be said that Arsenal’s abundance of possession in the first 45 had a lot to do with Emmanuel Frimpong. Frimpong’s tackling was exceptional and he was quick to hound the Barnet players when ever they had possession. The Ghanaian youngster’s ball distribution was second to none and he rarely misplaced his passes. Jack Wilshere also did extremely well and setup two goals and looked bright throughout. His loan spell at Bolton seemed to have done him some good as Wilshere looked stronger and quicker through the midfield.

As for the two new signings, Koscielny dealt comfortably with whatever little came his way in the first 45 and Chamakh would have done better with the better quality of crosses Nordtveit and Traore were firing through in the first half.

Johan Djourou came through unscathed in the 45 minutes he played. Doubts still hang over the futures of Sylvestre, Gallas and Campbell and central defensive options will be rather limited if all three were to leave as only Vermaelen and Djourou have any Premier League experience to note.

Up next we have SK Sturm Graz at the UPC-Arena in Graz. The Gunners fly off to Austria early this week and kick off is at 5 am on Thursday the 22^nd.