“Impactors,” Mikel Arteta called them, and Gabriel Martinelli made quite an impact at San Mamés. “Sometimes you just need a second to change the history of a football club,” the Arsenal manager said last spring, and although describing the goal that set up victory here in those terms would be pushing it, the beginning of a Champions League campaign in which they aspire to do just that underlined why he has insisted on the importance of strength in depth. On a night in which they were without seven key men and were yet to find a way through a club that are the ultimate in resistance the solution came from the bench.
One second it was not, but Martinelli had been on the pitch for only 36 of them when he was suddenly away, racing behind the Athletic Bilbao defence and slipping the ball under Unai Simón to put Arsenal into the lead with 18 minutes left. As if to prove the point, Leandro Trossard, another substitute who had come on just five minutes before him, had provided the pass for it and then added the second to secure the win. Last season they had paid for a lack of depth, Arteta had said; this season sees them start victorious thanks to the men waiting in reserve.
For much of a noisy night in which Noni Madueke had been the most consistent threat, Arsenal had struggled to carve out really clear chances. But then a loose ball dropped in midfield and Trossard got there first, sending it looping into space. Martinelli was on to it fast and if the first touch was a little heavy, the second was superb, seeing him escape Andoni Gorosabel and steer under the body of Simón.
