Arsenal thumped BATE Borisov 6-0 at the Emirates Stadium, rounding off their Europa League group stage with a convincing win and a promising performances from some lesser seen individuals.
Dominant from the first whistle
As soon as the game kicked off, Arsenal fans knew they were in for a treat. Everyone just seemed up for it, and you could see that by Arsenal chasing every loose ball.
The Gunners found themselves playing some beautiful football in the oppositions half, courtesy of some intricate passing from Jack Wilshere.
This dominance soon payed off, as Mathieu Debuchy got the first goal of the match just after the ten minute mark, benefiting from a penalty appeal which left him with a lot of space, rifling the ball into the far corner.
The first half goals soon followed, as Jack Wilshere and Theo Walcott got on the score sheet to put Arsenal in a promising position heading into the break.
Keeping the tempo
Arsenal must have felt like they owed their (lack of) home supporters a bombardment of goals. Following their disappointing result against Manchester United at the weekend, they certainly bounced back from that.
Many teams would have shut-up shop at 3-0 up, but not Arsenal. They saw the opportunity for goals, and they took them well.
Saying that, it wasn't actually an Arsenal player who scored their first second half goal. Theo Walcott did some amazing work on the edge of the box, and tried to tee up Danny Welbeck, but he only reached Denis Polyakov, who steered it into his own net.
Olivier Giroud took advantage of a good start to the second half by converting a penalty. Well, he actually converted two, but the first was denied.
It was a game of unlikely scorers, and Mohamed Elneny did nothing to tarnish that reputation, as he curled a stunning effort into the far-hand corner.
Untested defence
They say that the best from of defence is offence, and that was certainly the case in this match.
Because Arsenal were mainly having fun in the oppositions box, the inexperienced Arsenal defence could sit back and watch the game unfold, which is never a bad thing.
The average age for Arsenal's back four was just 24 years old (made to look older by Debuchy's 32, of course). It was brave of Arsene Wenger to deploy such a youthful defence, but why not?
His risk paid off, as Rob Holding, Calum Chambers and Ainsley Maitland-Niles picked up a lot of confidence by seeing off the limited challenges they faced.
A clean sheet is what Arsene Wenger would have hoped for, following the question marks surrounding his senior defender's mistakes in the Manchester United game, and he got it.