The crazy thing was that Atlético Madrid were well in this Champions League tie until the 57th minute. Diego Simeone’s team had defended robustly. They had just hit the crossbar through Julián Alvarez. But then they were not and it was the speed and brutality with which Arsenal moved the game away from them that took the breath.
There were more set-piece goals, inevitably – for the breakthrough and No 4. It was Declan Rice to Gabriel Magalhães and then a repeat of the link-up, the only difference being that Gabriel headed square for Viktor Gyökeres to bundle over the line.
It was Gyökeres’s second of the evening, his first for 3-0 coming after he dug a breaking ball out of his feet to jam home with the help of a deflection off David Hancko. Gyökeres’s work-rate was tireless. This was his reward. Gabriel Martinelli had scored the second after a driving run from Myles Lewis-Skelly, Simeone kicking an imaginary ball in frustration as his players failed to check the progress of Arsenal’s provider.
Atlético saw stars, four concessions in 14 minutes and it added up to a message from Arsenal to the rest of Europe. They have won three out of three in the league phase of this competition and have kept clean sheets in all of them – an extension of their domestic miserliness. Mikel Arteta’s team have been breached only three times all season. They are intent on bulldozing their way to glory.
