They probably don’t need reminding, but this competition is wide open for Arsenal to win. Earlier, Napoli went out on away goals to RB Leipzig, and Dortmund are 45 minutes away from going out to Atalanta on away goals. If Arsenal can get through this tie, they will probably be second favourites to win it (after Atlético, who cruised past Copenhagen).
Check on all the latest scores here.
Check on our match report of Celtic’s defeat at Zenit.
Probably the worst half of football I have ever seen from Arsenal. Definitely the best half I have seen from Ostersund (I’ve seen two others).
“Emiratestanbul anyone?” emails Jonny Mac.
45+1 min: Arsenal seem content to pass it square, square, backwards, square. Very strange why they don’t want to put pressure on Ostersund, who are down to 10 men.
45 min: Two minutes added on here at the end of the half.
43 min: Yellow card for Maitland-Niles, who quelled a dangerous Ostersund counter-attack by hauling Nouri to the turf. Maitland-Niles again got the wrong side, Elneny was again nowhere to be seen. These two are having an absolute stinker. And Ostersund still have 10 men! Pettersson is still receiving stitches on the Ostersund bench for his head injury!
41 min: Chance for Wilshere, who skies a golden chance after the ball bounced loose in Ostersund’s penalty box.
38 min: Pettersson has now had to go off with a blood injury, crashing his head into his team-mates’ elbow. Ostersund are down to 10 men for now, they need to hold out until the break!
37 min: Wilshere takes the resulting free-kick quickly, skips past Widgren and plays a delightful pass inside the full-back to Bellerin, who gets to the byline. It’s Pettersson who gets back though, a second wonderful sliding tackle inside 30 seconds.
36 min: Inch-perfect challenge from Pettersson on Mkhitaryan in midfield, but the referee rules it to be a free-kick. Not sure what he’s doing there, the referee Ivan Kruzliak has got two of three things wrong so far.
34 min: Chance for Arsenal. Mkhitaryan, who has been irrelevant in the opening half-an-hour, whips a ball in, Welbeck climbs and flicks the ball on from close range and the ball hits Keita, who is lucky to collect the ball afterwards.
31 min: Two emails, one from a Graham Potter fan, one from an Arsenal fan.
“Hello,” writes Michael Cosgrove, “and as someone who admires Graham Potter for his courageous attempts to create a new and original managerial style, which the Guardian reported, I hope that even if Östersund lose tonight they at least get to penalties so that he can go home deservedly happy with his approach, and motivated to continue his work.”
“Arsenal used to make low cost players into amazing talents, now we make low cost opponents look like Barca,” emails Steven Hallett. “Getting close to being bored with their consistent inconsistency.”
29 min: Edwards, born in Middlesbrough and who played for non-league clubs like Darlington and Thornaby before moving to Sweden, tries his luck from range as Ostersund try to tie the scores at 3-3 agg. It’s a yard wide. More boos from the home crowd.
28 min: Penalty shout for Arsenal! Turned away by the referee, who must have thought that Holding dived over Nouri’s challenge. He didn’t. That was probably a penalty.
26 min: What a tie we have now! Ostersunds are still in the ascendency here, and it’s a toxic environment for Arsenal.
Wow. Straight from the kick-off, Ostersund score again! Iwobi carelessly gives the ball away, Edwards wins it back for the visitors and sends a brilliant lofted pass to Sema on the left. Bellerin is all out of position, Sema turns Chambers with a brilliant bit of skill and lashes a fierce low strike into the far corner. Ospina had no chance with that one! Graham Potter is dancing on the sidelines, Ostersund’s fans go wild, and Arsenal look stunned!
It’s been coming. Arsenal lose the ball cheaply, Holding overcommits, Kolasinac fails to intercept the pass from Nouri and Aiesh, the Ostersund right winger, gets in behind Arsenal’s left back and sidefoots the ball past Ospina. It may have taken a small nick off Chambers on the way through, and might be given as an own goal. But it doesn’t matter, Ostersund are 1-0 up and full deserve their lead on the night.
20 min: A small break in play as Holding has a cut in the back of the head, which he sustained in a sliding tackle on Curtis Edwards. Holding is not hurt, but will need that patched up.
18 min: Really weird defending from Bellerin. He simply let Sema canter down the left side of the penalty box and have a shot on goal. Ospina parries and is lucky that the ball pops up kindly for him to gather at the second attempt.
15 min: There’s a half-baked penalty from Arsenal fans as Papagiannopoulos gives Kolasinac a gentle nudge in the box, but the Slovakian referee, Ivan Kruzliak, rightfully waves play on.
14 min: Corner to Arsenal, who take it short and proceed to make a series of backwards passes to Ospina. At least they kept the ball though, yeah?!
12 min: Arsenal have their first meaningful effort on goal: Iwobi drops the shoulder on the edge of Ostersund’s box, and curls it a full 20 yards wide.
10 min: One thing that Arsenal have done well is press Ostersund from their own goal kicks. Ostersund like to play out from the back but the keeper Keita is being forced to kick long, and it doesn’t look like he’s got the quality to break the press.
8 min: Ostersund break with pace, and Arsenal’s defence are horribly exposed: where are Elneny and Maitland-Niles?! Hopcutt gets to Arsenal’s box, squares to Ghoddos who plays a wonderfully weighted through ball to Nouri, but the Ostersund captain can’t control the simple pass. He was clean through, and all he needed to do was trap it! Nouri has his head in his hands, he knows what an opportunity that was. Arsenal are absolutely nowhere in these opening exchanges.
6 min: Wilshere and Iwobi finally get their foot on the ball, Arsenal start passing it around, and finally the hosts seem to have found their rhythm.
4 min: Another chance for Ostersund! Sema drives to the byline on Ostersund’s left, nutmegs Bellerin and squares to Hopcutt, who steers the ball towards the far post, and it’s only a fine block from holding that stops the Swedish side from taking the lead. Arsenal are rocking here.
2 min: Half-chance for Ostersund! A dreadful pass from Holding lets Hopcutt get one-on-one with Chambers. Hopcutt cuts the ball back for Ghoddos, but Bellerin nips in and hacks the ball out for a corner! Cleared by Arsenal, but that is a terrible start from the home side.
Peeeeeep! We’re off. Ostersunds are about 100-1 to qualify, according to some bookmakers. Let’s see what happens.
The teams are out. Even though they are playing at home, Arsenal are playing in their blue away kit. Ostersund are in their white home kit.
Celtic are out of the Europa League. Get the latest with Nick Ames.
In case you didn’t see the first leg, keep your eye on Ostersund’s Swedish-born Iranian striker Saman Ghoddos, who won the best forward award in last season’s Allsvenskan. He is small, quick, stocky and has an eye for goal.
Another to flag up is midfielder Ken Sema, who has recently broken into Sweden’s national team. It will be interesting to see how he gets on against Arsenal’s least experienced starter: Ainsley Maitland-Niles.
Elsewhere, Celtic are 3-0 down at Zenit, and need two goals in the minutes to qualify. In arguably the tie of the round, RB Leipzig v Napoli, it is now 3-3 after Lorenzo Insigne’s late goal, but the Italian side trail on away goals, they need one more in injury time. Tune in here.
Wenger speaks!
It’s not a formality. We have to show that we are focussed. Things are strange in football. You have to be intelligent and intelligent means focused. Many players think this is a competition where they have a chance to show their quality, and others see the final and Sunday and try to get a place in the team. Ostersund are ambitious, even more ambitious this year, they want to win the title in Sweden.
The away fans are already packing the away end, we’re just over 20 minutes away from kick-off now. The club’s ultras are called Falkarna, they are already in excellent voice at the Emirates.
Graham Potter, the Ostersund manager, speaks!
It’s a wonderful opportunity for us. We understand the size of the club that we face, but we’ll dream and hope for a miracle. We’ll try to be offensive with our wide players.
If you haven’t read this yet, do.
It also includes a throwaway line from the Ostersund chairman at the end that is a little corny, but I’d say pretty poignant for the club’s story.
If we lose we have to learn from that, so we always win, even if people think we lose the game.
The last time that Arsenal played a weakened team, they got battered 4-2 by Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup third-round.
Few chances taken by Wenger, then. Apart from a few defensive exceptions in Nacho Monreal, Laurent Koscielny and Shkodran Mustafi, this is arguably his strongest available team: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is cup-tied, Alexandre Lacazette is injured (as is Aaron Ramsey), Mesut Ozil is ill. Petr Cech is available but generally does not feature in the cup competitions.
It’s pleasing to see Arsenal pay Ostersund the respect they deserve. Perhaps it is more than respect.
Arsenal: Ospina, Bellerin, Chambers, Holding, Kolasinac, Mkhitaryan, Elneny, Maitland-Niles, Iwobi, Wilshere, Welbeck.
Subs: Macey, Monreal, Mustafi, Xhaka, Nelson, Nketiah, Willock.
Ostersunds FK: Keita, Mukiibi, Papagiannopoulos, Pettersson, Widgren, Aiesh, Edwards, Nouri, Sema, Hopcutt, Ghoddos.
Subs: Andersson, Tekie, Bergqvist, Gero, Mensah, Arhin, Islamovic.
Referee: Ivan Kruzliak (Slovakia)
In all seriousness, it is probably worth checking in on Celtic. They are 2-0 (2-1 agg) down at Zenit, but only need one away goal to go through. Join Nick Ames, if that’s your thing.
Arsenal are a wonderful club, an institution, and to go to the Emirates for the second leg is fantastic and crazy – because they have more people [60,000] in their stadium than we have in our whole town.
This quote from Graham Potter, manager of Östersund and taken from Donald McRae’s interview from a couple of weeks back, seems a fitting way to begin this preamble, simply because it puts into perspective the two teams we have playing tonight.
Even the most optimistic of Östersund fans will agree that their European adventure Europa League will almost definitely end tonight, Arsenal winning the first leg in Sweden 3-0. But what a way to go out: 5,000 Scandinavians rocking and rolling in the away end at the Emirates, 10% of the town’s total population. Östersund’s domestic league season ended in November, meaning this is a (cliche alert!) proverbial cup final for them, a match to be celebrated before it has even begun. It is going to be entertaining, whatever happens.
Of course, the tie is still alive, just, although Arsenal would need a European collapse at the Emirates not seen since … this time last year for them not to progress to the last 16. It is a chance for them to rest some big players prior to Sunday’s Capital One Cup final against Manchester City, and a chance for others to impress.
Unless you are a Östersund fan, if you want jeopardy, you’ve probably come to the wrong place. Try Zenit St Petersburg v Celtic for size. But if you like fun, and I know Graham Potter does, stay right there.
Kick-off: 8.05pm GMT