Europa League 2018/19, Arsenal 3-0 Stade Rennais: 5 Talking Points

#3 Fouls aplenty ruins tempo and Rennes' gameplan

This game was packed full of niggling tackles and fouls

Arsenal's blistering start was duly rewarded with a two-goal cushion after 15 minutes and despite Rennes' attempts to respond quickly and silence the home crowd, the game became very stop-start and frustrating for them.

With so many fouls (29 in total over 90 minutes) being committed every few minutes, it ruined the free-flowing style they might have been expecting as Arsenal looked in search of more goals.

Last Thursday, they were gifted space and width to attack in numbers for an hour with a numerical advantage but it was the opposite here: getting frustrated, often arguing with officials and letting it cloud their decision-making.

The hosts naturally fed into that, not exactly exhibiting the dark arts nor exactly showing their opponents much respect with some needless niggling fouls too which raised the temperature around the ground.

Rennes' gameplan was presumably to soak up the pressure, before hitting on the counter to score and silence the home crowd. However, they were overwhelmed by that same pressure they needed to defend against and failed to test Petr Cech enough as their Europa League dreams came crashing down to a halt at Emirates.

This display showed once again that Arsenal is capable of winning ugly and if they were more consistent, they'd still find themselves in the Premier League title race. That's a debate for another day, though.