Teams
Arsenal: Seaman, Dixon, Adams, Linighan, Winterburn, Jensen, Schwarz,
Merson, Smith, Wright, Parlour
Subs: Campbell (Merson 75), Hillier (Jensen 75), Keown,
Morrow, Bartram
Omonia : Christou, Kalotheou, Panagiotou, Constantinou, Christofi,
Andreou, Cantilos, Savvides, Christodouiou, Malekkos,
Xiouroupas
Subs: Tutic (Xiouroupas 58)
Result : Arsenal (2) 3 Omonia Nicosia (0) 0
Agg: 6-1
Scorers : Wright 9, 70 Schwarz 31
Bookings: Constantinou?, ?
Att : 24265
Referee : J A Roca (Spain)
A reasonably competent performance from Arsenal, though they didn't really do a great deal more than they had to. George Graham was obviously approaching it in a serious manner though, putting out what he seems to consider his strongest available, with Linighan preferred to Keown.
The game started fairly quietly and it was actually Omonia who first came close to scoring when a dangerous looking attack down the middle ended in a wild shot. However, any slim hopes of an upset were squashed in the 9th minute when an attempt to play the offside trap on a hoof from the back by Seaman failed. I think Smith was almost certainly offside, but running back, and it was hard to tell whether Merson and Wright were, but the linesman kept his flag down to leave the Arsenal pair yards clear. Merson brought the ball down neatly and advanced on the keeper before unselfishly slipping it inside to Wright on his left who had a simple tap in. Wrighty was then nastily clobbered from behind by Kalotheou, with a foul so late that the ref had apparently already turned upfield, because the Cypriot wasn't even booked when he should have been sent off. Soon afterwards Smith hit the bar with a header from a Schwarz cross after the latter had combined well with Winterburn. Schwarz also went close with a cross-shot, but did score after half an hour. Merson went on a run down the middle, seemed to have lost the ball, but persisted and regained control to take it right to the byline. He then did very well to pull back a cross which was headed out to Schwarz on the 18 yard line, and he dispatched a sweet left foot volley through a crowd of players into the opposite corner. Arsenal were playing some quite nice stuff, one move ended in 'Shoot' Jensen blasting high and wide. Another lovely deep cross to the far post by Schwarz picked out Parlour running in at speed, but his volley went over, Merson shot straight at the keeper from an angle after Nutty had done well to win the ball in a tackle and put him through. Meanwhile Omonia occasionally looked dangerous, mostly down the middle. Seaman had to come out smartly on a couple of occasions when Savvides or Malekkos broke through.
With the job virtually done, Arsenal possibly eased off in the 2nd half and Omonia were mainly concerned with keeping the scoreline respectable. Chances still came and went though. Merson had a couple of efforts after breaking down the left which went wide, and following a corner JJ almost scored. His left foot shot from the edge of the box was arrowing towards the top corner before the keeper thwarted him with a great save. Then another great goal from Wright. Dixon played Parlour through down the right, and his cross was met with a superb bullet header from Wright. Soon after that another right wing cross from Parlour found Smith in space on the six yard line, but he somehow mistimed his header and the ball barely even went forward. Merson and Jensen were replaced with 15 minutes left by Campbell and Hillier which meant that Arsenal played the last 5 minutes with 10 men after Wright was caught with another late tackle from behind and had to be stretchered off. It looked quite bad, but was later reported to be not too serious and he could be fit for the weekend. One of the Cypriot defenders was booked for time wasting after eventually convincing the ref that the stretcher was needed and then getting up to walk about unaided when it arrived. Hillier looked quite sharp with a couple of nice tackles and passes, and could have scored just before the final whistle when he ran unmarked onto a deep cross from Smith. However, I guess he was put off by the keeper charging out to meet him, and his header went a yard or two wide.
So a satisfactory evening's work for the Gunners, with Schwarz and Merson the pick. We'll probably see a somewhat changed team against Palace on Saturday with less than 48 hours rest.
report by Derek Brownjohn.
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