LG Amsterdam Tournament 2007 - Day 1

Arsenal 2 Bendtner, Eduardo
Lazio 1 Pandev

It was a victorious debut for the third kit with the 2-1 victory over their Italian rivals Lazio at the LG Tournament in Amsterdam last night. The colour of the kit blended rather nicely which is better than wearing the white away shirt.

Yesterday's match gave me the opportunity to watch for the first time Eduardo da Silva 'live'. He was part of a very youthful line-up with Manule Almunia in goal and the defensive pairing of Johan Djourou and Phillipe Senderos in front of him.

Justin Hoyte and Armand Traore provided the support on the flanks for Theo Walcott and Gael Glichy respectively. Alex Song was given the opportunity to shine alongside the more experienced Cesc Fabregas while Niklas Bendtner partnered Eduardo in the frontline.

Sadly, still no Lukasz Fabianski.

The Italians started well and gained the control of the match early on. Both sides probed one another to find any opening that might be available. Goran Pandev found his partner Tomasso Rocchi with a wonderful through ball but Almunia was quickly off his feet to tap the ball against the attacker, enabling Senderos to clear the loose ball.

Arsenal took the lead in the 18th minute when Cesc Fabregas's shot was deflected by a Lazio defender into the path of Bendtner. The chance was seemed lost when the big Dane had to take the ball wide of the goal to evade Marco Ballotta.

Bendtner is about to score the first goal for Arsenal

However he kept his composure and managed to unleash a shot which went past the goalkeeper and the defenders covering on the Lazio goal-line. The goal certainly enhanced my belief about Wenger's decision to allow the more established 'stars' to leave during the summer.

Bendtner has added new dimension to the Arsenal front-line

If there is one thing about Arsenal that got me worried was the defence habit of giving away silly goals. Last night, a seemingly easy corner to defend resulted in Lazio levelling the score when Eduardo failed to clear and Senderos was stranded in no-man's land to give Pandev the chance to slot the ball past Almunia at the near post.

A defensive error allows Lazio to equalise

Almunia then pulled off another save just as the referee was about to blow for the interval when he calmly collected Stefano Mauri's goalbound header.

Fabregas was taken off at the interval by Wenger giving Matthie Flamini more playing time in the middle of the park. Another change saw Tomas Rosicky taking his usual position on the left side of midfield in place of Clichy.

In the 55th minute Arsenal regained their lead when the Lazio defence misjudged a corner leaving Eduardo with a simple task of heading the ball home. The screen displayed the goal was credited as own goal by Lazio defender Luciano Zauri which I found rather baffling.

Eduardo takes his chance well

After a while the match seemed to slow down. However the introduction of Robin Van Persie in the 64th minute seemed to spur some urgency into the match. His shot soon after coming on certainly had Ballotta worried.

Then in the 75th minute Van Persie opened the Lazio defense once again on the right. He found Rosicky in the middle but the Czech midfielder passed it to Hoyte who should have buried it. Instead the full-back's shot came back against the far post and was cleared.

Lazio substitute Gaby Mudingayi also hit the post a few minutes later with Almunia well beaten. Despite that Arsenal did not seem to be in danger of losing their lead again and collected five points from the win and the goals at the final whistle.