Former Chelsea striker Didier Drogba has many football records to his name but one of the most famous is how often he has managed to score against Arsenal.
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“He reads the game well and understands what’s going on at such a young age”. “That’s what the Premier League is about at the moment”.
But as the game in front of a sell-out 18,000 crowd in San Jose looked to be petering out to a 1-1 draw, Chuba Akpom got on the end of Nacho Monreal’s cross to tap in the winning goal three minutes from time.
“I don’t know that, it’s [some] months, but I don’t know [exactly] how long he will be out for”, he said in a press conference ahead of the Gunners clash against an MLS All-Stars.
Friday’s match-winner Akpom is expected to lead the line for Arsenal after his late victor against the MLS All Stars and will hope another impressive display could see him usurp Theo Walcott, indifferent in the same game, in the battle for a starting place against Liverpool on the season’s opening day. Last year, the MLS squad defeated Tottenham Hotspur, another Premier League team, and they beat the German squad Bayern Munich in 2014.
“I think you need to buy players you need, you need to buy players that will improve the team and not to buy players just for buying”.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger joked that Drogba continues to haunt his side, after the Ivorian scored for the MLS All-Stars team in their 2-1 defeat to the Gunners.
One thing that many failed to notice after the game was the fact that Rob Holding played the full 90 minutes in San Jose – the only player to do so. Throngs of red-and-white clad Gooners streamed through the Avaya Stadium concourses, and whenever an Arsenal player wandered close enough, they hooted and hollered and snapped photo after photo.
Last summer, the brilliant Petr Cech was purchased from Chelsea and holding midfielder Mohamed Elneny arrived in January from Basel.
38-year-old Drogba has scored 19 MLS goals in 23 appearances for Montreal Impact since signing up in 2015.
“I hate losing. So for fun, I will have fun with Petr because I scored”.
“I believe it was tough for us”, he said.
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And with the eyes of MLS and of northern London on San Jose, the Quakes showed they could still put on a soccer party.
