(Football news) A brilliant second half cameo by Luuk de Jong involving a goal and an assist helped PSV Eindhoven secure a 2-0 victory over Arsenal in the UEFA Europa League. The result meant that Arsenal missed out on the opportunity to secure the top spot in Group A with the victory ensuring that the Gunners would have progressed straight to the Round of 16, bypassing a play-off tie against a Champions League team that finished in third place. A fine finish by Cody Gakpo was ruled out for offside while Xavi Simons beat three Arsenal defenders before slotting home, only for the goal to be ruled offside during the build up. 

Former Manchester United and Real Madrid striker Ruud van Nistelrooy introduced Luuk de Jong in the second half who set up Joey Veerman for the opening goal in the 55th minute and went on to score himself when Aaron Ramsdale fumbled to punch the ball away, allowing the 32 year old to head home in the 63rd minute. Cody Gakpo had another goal disallowed for offside while Arsenal offered virtually no threat to PSV in what was a toothless performance by Mikel Arteta’s side. The battle for top spot in Group A will go down to the final matches next Thursday despite Arsenal having a two point advantage in first place.

After a 4-2 loss to Groningen in the Eredivisie, PSV made three changes with Jarrad Branthwaite, Philipp Mwene and Erick Gutierrez replacing Jordan Teze, Armando Obispo and Guus Til. Arsenal made five changes with Ben White, Gabriel, Thomas Partey, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Jesus dropping to the bench to accommodate Kieran Tierney, William Saliba, Albert Sambi Lokonga, Fabio Vieira and Eddie Nketiah. It was Arsenal’s second ever away defeat in the group stages of the UEFA Europa League (P15 W11 D2 L2) and their first since November 2017 (a 1-0 defeat to FC Koln).

Speaking after the match, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said “I'm very disappointed. It's the end of a long run, where we won a lot of games and today is our first defeat [since the start of September] and we have to reset. Congratulations to PSV – they were the better team today. We were nowhere near our level and we know that in Europe, it's very difficult to win [then]. We didn't get any control. We didn't get the ball in the areas we wanted. We gave so many balls away, which allowed so many transitions, which was what they were looking for whenever they got in the right structure. They were on top of a lot of things that last week was different. 

"We have periods where we've been excellent and periods where we've suffered. For sure, we haven't had the consistency for 95 minutes to maintain the level we want. That's the next challenge and the next aim for this team. Today I think it was very different, right from the beginning. Even though we had periods where we controlled the game, I didn't feel that we had the threat and the aggression that we've been playing at. That was worrying. In the second half, the moment something went wrong, we just went down and we didn't really find moments to give us some hope to react and get something out of the game. It's my responsibility to adapt and to get the best out of the players. These players have been exceptionally good. They've been performing at a level that probably no one expected. It's down to us and especially down to me to get the best out of them – that's it."

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