After such a fruitful pre-season tour of Asia, Arsenal faced a much sterner test against Italian side Napoli in the Emirates Cup, coming from two goals down to gain a draw against the Serie A runners-up.

In a real tale of two halves, Arsenals defences frailties were exploited, while the urgent need for Arsene Wenger to splash the cash was made all the more obvious.

Substitutes saving the day

As first half performances go, Arsenal’s was below average. It was a performance lacking in energy and creativity, while the defence left far too many gaps for Napoli to exploit. However, the defensive performance was arguably the biggest shock of the half, considering that Arsenal had conceded only 5 goals in the last 10 games of the previous season.

In the second half, thanks to a flurry of substitutions, it was the gunners who were able to grind their way back into the game. With the introduction of the pace and creativity of Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Arsenal became more like the side we are used to, and seemed to have renewed energy about them.

Performances of the Day

While Carl Jenkinson and Lukas Fabianski may have made big individual errors for both goals, and Lukas Podolski looks awfully short on confidence, there were some positive performances from the match.

Serge Gnabry, despite being the youngest player to start the game for Arsenal, was without doubt our player of the half, looking most likely to cause the opposition trouble. Even though the German should have scored early on, he is showing great potential and was rather harshly subbed off, despite showing greater energy and creativity then Podolski.

However, once again Laurent Koscielny was our best player out there. Despite a shaky start from the Arsenal defence in the early stages, Koscielny played admirably throughout, and put in a real hard shift, which was capped off with him scoring the equalising goal.

Need for Signings

Despite Arsenal producing a very good comeback against the Italian side, throughout the match the need for signings was made more and more obvious.

Podolski looked very short on confidence and Giroud, while a very capable striker will not be able to carry the burden of goals alone. In the first half both attackers didn’t link up well with the midfielders and as a consequence Arsenal hardly tested Napoli goalkeeper Pepe Reina.

In defence, Mertesacker’s lack of pace was shown for all to see as Napoli scored their second, and so if we could sign another defender it would be a real improvement to this side whose defence was the worse aspect of the game.

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