Arsenal achieve something not seen in 16 years against Ludogorets

Arsenal’s 6-0 win over Ludogorets in the Champions League was significant for a number of reasons.

For a start, it provided manager Arsene Wenger with his 100th victory in European competitions.

The triumph also inducted a fifth member to the Gunners’ Champions League hat-trick club, as Mesut Ozil went home with the match ball.

Meanwhile, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain scored and assisted in the same European match for the first time in his career.

The latter’s appearance on the scoresheet alongside the red-hot Theo Walcott was the most monumental piece of Arsenal history however.

2 – Two English players have scored in the same CL match for Arsenal for the first time since October 2000 (Parlour and Dixon). Lions.

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) October 19, 2016

The game in question – a 4-2 home win over Sparta Prague – came back in halcyon days when Wenger actually retained English players in his squad. David Seaman, Matthew Upson, Ashley Cole and John Lukic all joined the two goalscorers in the match-day 18 on that occasion.

But since then, the French tactician has famously shied away from selecting Englishmen.

In fact, five years after Parlour and Dixon helped the former Monaco boss earn three points in Europe, Wenger named the first all-foreign Premier League squad in the division’s history.

A slow return to what some may call the better days of homegrown players representing the Gunners began when Wenger signed Walcott in 2006.

Oxlade-Chamberlain followed six years later and, along with Alex Iwobi, Rob Holding, Kieran Gibbs and Danny Welbeck, helps form an English core in north London not seen since those early Wenger years.

Following their demolition of Ludogorets, the Gunners can be backed at 3/4 to top Group A ahead of Paris Saint-Germain, and 22/1 to win the Champions League outright.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing