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Arsenal reached the Champions League round of 16 as winners by beating Lens at the Emirates Stadium.
The Gunners scored five goals in a phenomenal first half and reached the last 16 in their first appearance at the festival in seven years.
Kai Havertz, Gabriel Jesus, Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Martin Odegaard all scored in the first half, before Jorginho added a delayed penalty.
Arsenal advance in Group B along with PSV Eindhoven and Lens.
Havertz, who entered the starting lineup after scoring the winning goal against Brentford at the weekend, opened the scoring in the 13th minute when Lens failed to clear a looping ball in the area. Jesús nodded in front of the goal and Havertz showed the intuition of a striker to finish from a close range beyond goalkeeper Brice Samba.
Jesus scored to mark Samba at second from 15 yards, sweeping the gap after being set up by Saka’s hard run between defenders on the right.
Arsenal’s attacking unit is on the rise, exemplified by Saka’s switch from lending a hand to scoring just two minutes and 20 seconds later, bringing the ball home after Samba shot through Martinelli.
Brazilian winger Martinelli did not refuse and scored the most productive goal of the lot in the 27th minute, locating the lowest angle after an inside cut down the left.
The fifth came in first-half stoppage time, with Odegaard better timing a volley from 12 yards after a cross from Takehiro Tomiyasu.
Arsenal are the first team in Champions League history to have another five goalscorers in the first half of a match.
A quieter moment followed, before Jorginho added a sixth from the penalty spot after a handball by Abduqodir Khusanov.
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It seemed, about an hour before kick-off, that Arsenal would qualify for the knockout stages by touching the ball, but PSV’s remarkable comeback in Seville forced them to qualify for the round of 16.
Mikel Arteta looks at this game as if he’s annoyed by the inconvenience of having to do the homework themselves and as if he wants to do it as temporarily as possible.
Thanks to the smoke from pyrotechnics smuggled in by Lens fans, Arsenal were unstoppable in the first half, scoring 3 in seven minutes.
He also played as if he had a score to settle with Lens, a team he had beaten in the last 3 games of the Champions League, adding the opposite match of Group B, which the French won 2-1.
Saka, on the fifth anniversary of his Arsenal debut, formidable despite the common fouls.
His goal at the moment is his fourth in five Champions League games. No Arsenal player has created more than three before in a single campaign.
The initial attack gave the impression of threatening the record margin of victory in the Champions League, set through Liverpool and Real Madrid with 8-0 victories over Besiktas and Malmo respectively, but Lens have avoided that indignity and will still succeed in the Europa League. if they avoid defeat against Sevilla. 12 December.