Arsenal returned from the Basque Country with a valuable 2-0 victory over Spain\u2019s Athletic Bilbao on Tuesday, thanks to goals from substitutes Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard in the opening round of the new unified group stage of the UEFA Champions League.<\/p>\n
With a revamped attacking trio of Viktor Gy\u00f6keres, Eberechi Eze, and Noni Madueke, the Gunners\u2014last year\u2019s semifinalists after a memorable run that saw them eliminate defending champions Real Madrid before bowing out to Paris Saint-Germain\u2014struggled to find a breakthrough.<\/p>\n
Manager Mikel Arteta turned to his bench, and the changes paid off immediately. Trossard scored with his very first touch in the 72nd minute, before Martinelli sealed the win in the 87th with a surging run and clinical finish.<\/p>\n
The match at San Mam\u00e9s marked Bilbao\u2019s first appearance in Europe\u2019s premier club competition since the 2014\/15 season, when their campaign ended in the group stage.<\/p>\n
Martinelli\u2019s goal came after a swift counterattack launched from midfield. Receiving a perfectly weighted pass from fellow substitute Trossard, the Brazilian darted into the box and fired past goalkeeper Unai Sim\u00f3n, whose attempted save fell short.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal returned from the Basque Country with a valuable 2-0 victory over Spain\u2019s Athletic Bilbao on Tuesday, thanks to goals from substitutes Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard in the opening round of the new unified group stage of the UEFA Champions League. With a revamped attacking trio of Viktor Gy\u00f6keres, Eberechi Eze, and Noni Madueke, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54382,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54381\/revisions\/54382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}