Nicolas Pépé is actually good?…. Arsenal v Vitoria SC

Firstly, apologies that this blog is actually the day after the game, I didn’t get back until late, but I don’t think you care really.

Anyway, this week’s game was my first trip to the mighty Gooners this season as they hosted Vitoria in the Europa League.

This was also an opportunity for me to take my girlfriend to the best stadium in world football for the first time and boy was she in for a treat. I was going to title this blog “taking my girlfriend up the Arse (nal) for the first time” but I think that might give off the wrong impression of this post.

After travelling on the DLR, Northern Line and then the Piccadilly Line, we made it to Arsenal station. Everything went pretty smoothly when we got to the ground, although there was a separate queue for men and women so we were momentarily split up.

Thankfully we were reunited a good 50 seconds later but absence makes the heart grow fonder so our reunion was much like the beach scene in Madagascar.

We got to our seats about 15 minutes before kick off and the anticipation was building.

Kick off came and we swiftly realised that we were in the standing section, this was fine for me as I go to non league every week where there’s about 12 seats.

But this was a foreign prospect for Eloise, to be fair to her she didn’t complain that her feet hurt until about the 70th minute.

Vitoria went 1-0 in the eighth minute, with a goal scored by a former Spurs player. If this wasn’t a true depiction of life as an Arsenal fan then I don’t know what is.

Arsenal equalised and then conceded again before half time and I was wondering why I bothered to go out on a Thursday night.

The second half wasn’t much better until the introduction of Nicolas Pépé and we witnessed him announce himself at Arsenal. He scored two free kicks in the last ten minutes and probably saved Unai Emery’s job.

I love Pépé and think that he has got a lot of unwarranted stick recently despite only being in the infancy of his career in England, so please keep this up Nico…

This kept up my record of never seeing Arsenal lose at the Emirates and an exciting finish probably made Eloise forget about her feet hurting (hopefully).

We decided to get the bus home because we were both tired and it takes us pretty much right to our door, we also found a Tesco which was great as we were both hungry and thirsty.

A great evening in the end and hopefully it won’t be last time I can take her up the Arse (nal).

Five things that have annoyed me about football this week will be up later, i’m not going to a game this weekend but hopefully there will be a blog next week!

• GROUND: Emirates Stadium
• GAME: Arsenal 3-2 Vitoria SC
• COMPETITION: Europa League
• GROUND NUMBER: Already Been
• WOULD I GO BACK: Yes
• TICKET PRICE: £16.50