Arsenal 3-0 Lille: Champions League – as it happened

10.18pm BST

Right, that’s all from me. Bye! Before I go, here’s Ed Aarons’ match report again:

Related: Timber’s touch of class and supersub Saka secure Arsenal win against Lille

And by way of parting gift here’s Sid Lowe on Manchester United’s defeat at Atletico Madrid:

Related: Barrios strikes after 53 seconds as Atlético pile misery on 10-man Manchester United

10.16pm BST

Eberiche Eze sums the match up:

Good performance. We done what we needed to do, played free and enjoyed it, which is the main thing. A lot of teams come here with a lot of energy so the first half can be quite difficult, but the aim is to grind teams down.

10.04pm BST

Ed Aarons’ match report has landed!

Twelve wins in a row and counting. On a night when Arsenal remembered Ken Friar – the club’s life president who was instrumental in their move from Highbury to the Emirates in 2006 – it was fitting that Mikel ­Arteta’s side should rack up yet another Champions League milestone at their home that has become a fortress.

Such has Arsenal’s dominance been here in recent seasons that when Bukayo Saka slotted home their third against a dogged Lille side, it was the 36th goal they have scored at the Emirates in the league or group stage since returning to Europe’s top table under Arteta three years ago.

Much more here:

Related: Timber’s touch of class and supersub Saka secure Arsenal win against Lille

9.59pm BST

While we wait for our match report, here’s one on England’s 5-0 trouncing of Greece in their women’s World Cup play-off:

Related: James and Russo lead rout of Greece as ruthless England set up Ukraine playoff

9.58pm BST

Tonight’s Champions League scores in full:

Arsenal 3-0 LilleAtletico Madrid 2-0 Manchester UnitedGalatasaray 1-4 BarcelonaInternazionale 3-4 Club BruggeLens 0-2 SportingRB Leipzig 1-0 PSVSabah 2-0 Slavia PragueViking 3-3 Bayern Munich*Villarreal 3-1 Napoli

* Drama here: Viking 2-0 up at half-time, 2-3 down when Michael Olise was sent off for a second yellow card in the 73rd minute, and they snatched a last-minute equaliser.

9.58pm BST

Jurrien Timber, whose goal cracked Lille open, has a chat:

I had some moments in the first half. The first touch was good, which was half of the job. Then Noni was screaming “Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!”, so I shot. I wasn’t thinking too much. I was just thinking, “I need to shoot”. We needed that first goal. We were playing well but we needed that goal. We know how good we are. First half we had some moments, we were sloppy, but we were always in control. We just need to keep going. It’s still early in the season.

9.52pm BST

Final score: Arsenal 3-0 Lille 90+4 mins: It’s all over! Three goals in eight minutes carry Arsenal to victory over an impressively organised but ultimately outclassed Lille, who simply couldn’t give the ball away as frequently as they did in the second half and get away with it.

9.50pm BST

90+2 mins: Havertz closes down the keeper a little overenthusiastically, catches him as he follows through having made his clearance, and is booked.

9.48pm BST

90+1 mins: Into stoppage time, of which there’ll be three minutes or so.

9.48pm BST

90 mins: A lovely first-time pass from Odegaard to Dowman, inside a congested penalty area. Doesn’t come to anything, but absolutely great all the same.

9.46pm BST

88 mins: Manchester United, meanwhile, are two goals and a man down in Madrid.

Related: Atlético Madrid v Manchester United: Champions League – live

9.42pm BST

85 mins: Arsenal bring Max Dowman on for Eze.

9.41pm BST

84 mins: Arsenal playing at walking pace, which they were pretty much doing for much of the first hour but which feels much less aggravating now.

9.40pm BST

82 mins: Lille bring Soriba Diaoune on for Bakwa.

9.39pm BST

81 mins: Goffi gets booked for fouling Eze, not a good challenge at all, but not quite bad enough for anything more severe.

9.36pm BST

78 mins: Olivier Giroud gets the fourth-loudest cheer of the night so far as he comes on for Ueda. Calvin Verdonk also comes on, for Perraud, and Arsenal bring Ben White on for Timber.

Updated at 9.43pm BST

9.35pm BST

77 mins: Lille give the ball away again, about 40 yards from their goal, and Arsenal have four against two and really should score. But Guimaraes has no interest in passing it, and instead takes a shot from 25 yards that Ozer saves.

9.34pm BST

77 mins: Olivier Giroud is, apparently, about to get his moment.

9.34pm BST

76 mins: Not having Gyokeres on the pitch makes such a big difference for Arsenal.

9.31pm BST

73 mins: Almost a chance for Lille! Rice thinks he’s been fouled but the referee waves play on, the ball is played infield from the right to Bakwa, and Konsa throws himself in the way of his shot.

9.30pm BST

73 mins: Lille take off Bentaleb and Mukau, and bring on Sahraoui and Kjaergaard.

9.30pm BST

GOAL! Arsenal 3-0 Lille (Saka, 71 mins) I’m old enough to remember when this game felt close. The three substitutes combine for this one: Odegaard releases Havertz down the right side of the penalty area, he cuts back to Saka, and Saka sidefoots across goal and in at the far post!

Updated at 9.40pm BST

9.28pm BST

70 mins: Save! Arsenal are now all but unstoppable. Saka’s cross from the right almost falls to Rice, and a few seconds later Eze is played in to the left of goal, but Ozer gets a hand to his shot.

9.26pm BST

GOAL! Arsenal 2-0 Lille (Eze, 67 mins) Arsenal double their lead, and this goal is all the sweeter for coming from the ball being gifted to them by the former Spurs midfielder Nabil Bentaleb. It’s played down the right to Saka, whose first touch is to pass into the middle, where Eze’s shot deflects (I think) past Ozer.

Updated at 9.34pm BST

9.23pm BST

65 mins: Arsenal make their triple substitution, with Madueke, Merino and Gyokeres going off for Saka, Odegaard and Havertz.

9.22pm BST

65 mins: Madueke plays the ball into Timber, inside the penalty area but with his back to goal, whose first touch takes him past Andre, and whose second dinks it over Ozer. That really is very good.

Updated at 10.22pm BST

9.22pm BST

GOAL! Arsenal 1-0 Lille (Timber, 64 mins) Arsenal take the lead thanks to a lovely piece of work from Jurrien Timber!

9.21pm BST

63 mins: Lille haven’t got out of their half since the break. They’ve been appalling in possession, but still defensively and organisationally excellent.

9.20pm BST

62 mins: Arteta has seen enough, and is readying Havertz, Saka and Odegaard for an imminent triple change.

9.19pm BST

61 mins: Guimaraes attempts a 360-degree penalty-area pirouette. Sure, he loses the ball, but those dancing feet!

9.18pm BST

60 mins: Guimaraes runs into the area and goes down, and this time Arsenal are interested. But the referee is not, and neither is VAR.

9.17pm BST

59 mins: Lille take too long over a defensive throw-in, and it gets handed to Arsenal. But again, nothing comes of it.

9.16pm BST

57 mins: It may be time for Arsenal to utilise their bench – the only thing that’s really changed since half-time is the amount of grumbling coming from the crowd.

9.13pm BST

54 mins: Arsenal keep the ball for a while, but the closer they get to goal the less keen they seem to be to reach it.

9.10pm BST

52 mins: Madueke catches Perraud, who goes down, smacking the turf with a palm in apparent agony. So the referee blows his whistle, at which point Perraud’s agony magically evaporates, and he gets up.

9.09pm BST

51 mins: Arsenal do appear to have been instructed to get a move on, and the ball is zipping about with a bit more pace. Which is promising.

9.07pm BST

49 mins: Guimaraes takes the first shot of the second half, but it’s not very good, and floats harmlessly high and wide.

9.06pm BST

48 mins: … but that doesn’t lead to anything more than a goal kick.

9.05pm BST

47 mins: The first half ended(ish) with a couple of Arsenal corners and the second half has started similarly. This time they’re also going to get a third, which Rice is going to take.

9.03pm BST

46 mins: Peeeeeeep! Arsenal get the ball re-rolling.

9.03pm BST

The players are back out at the Emirates, with no halftimely changes.

Updated at 9.03pm BST

9.00pm BST

Also in the Champions League tonight:

Atletico Madrid 1-0 Manchester United

Related: Atlético Madrid v Manchester United: Champions League – live

Galatasaray 1-1 BarcelonaViking 2-0 Bayern MunichLens 0-2 SportingSabah 2-0 Slavia PragueInternazionale 1-1 Club BruggeRB Leipzig 0-0 PSVVillarreal 2-1 Napoli

8.48pm BST

Half time: Arsenal 0-0 Lille Arsenal have had two excellent chances, one created with a move down the right which ended with Guimaraes shooting wide, and one created with a move down the left which ended with Eze having a shot saved. They’ve been the better team, but Lille have been well organised and hard working, and goalless it remains.

8.47pm BST

45+1 mins: Save! Guimaraes’s deflected shot bamboozles Ozer, who can’t hold on to it and has to dive again to claw the ball off the toes of Gyokeres and out for a corner.

Updated at 8.54pm BST

8.45pm BST

45 mins: … and his second attempt is cleared.

8.45pm BST

44 mins: Madueke takes the corner, which is headed behind for another corner.

8.43pm BST

43 mins: Madueke backheels into the path of the overlapping Timber, but he can’t pick out Gyokeres with his low cross, which is turned behind.

8.42pm BST

40 mins: Arsenal have both not really done very much, and done more than enough to be winning by now. They haven’t had any periods of sustained attacking, though, no time when a goal has seemed to be coming.

8.39pm BST

37 mins: What a chance that was! A brilliant pass from Guimaraes finds Timber, who pulls back to Eze, who really should be scoring. Instead he sidefoots low and down the centre of the goal and Ozer gets in the way, and to make matters worse the ball then rebounds to Gyokeres, who’s offside.

8.36pm BST

35 mins: Madueke’s cross drops eventually off Goffi’s shoulder to Merino, who thumps a first-time shot over the bar.

8.34pm BST

32 mins: Lille appear to have succeeded in the first task of visiting teams, aka quietening the crowd.

8.30pm BST

29 mins: Arsenal nick the ball in midfield and pass it up to Merino, who turns backwards, the pace drains out of the move, and then he gives it away for good measure. A few seconds later he tried a bit too hard to make amends, brings down Ueda and earns the night’s first booking.

8.28pm BST

27 mins: A quarter of the way through the match and there has been one shot on target, that feeble Merino header.

Updated at 8.28pm BST

8.25pm BST

24 mins: The VAR takes long enough to check the decision that you start to think that he might just conjure a reason to give it. But he doesn’t.

8.24pm BST

22 mins: Bentaleb’s shot deflects off a defender into Haraldsson and off him to Ueda, who turns it in. But the linesman’s flag is up!

Updated at 9.24pm BST

8.23pm BST

22 mins: And another one! Timber is the provider again, this time his cross from the right looping onto the head of Merino, but there’s not a lot of pace on it, and Merino can’t generate much of his own, so it ends up being an easy save for Ozer.

8.21pm BST

20 mins: Chance! Arsenal work the ball well to get into the area, Timber pulls back to Guimaraes, and his first-time shot from eight yards or so zips wide!

Updated at 8.39pm BST

8.19pm BST

19 mins: Madueke tricks himself into some space on the right (good), but then sends in a rubbish cross (bad).

8.18pm BST

17 mins: Raya collects a cross and then rolls it two-handed out to the edge of the area, where the closest player to the ball turns out to be Lille’s Ayase Ueda. Rice reacts quickly to this development, though, and in the time Ueda takes to spin to face goal, he sticks out a foot and pushes the ball away.

8.16pm BST

15 mins: Now Eze does get into the penalty area with the ball. He tees up Guimaraes, who takes a touch and then hits a shot into Bentaleb – there were four Lille players between him and goal, and he was always likely to hit one of them.

8.15pm BST

13 mins: For the second time Eze passes forwards to the underlapping Lewis-Skelly, who gives the ball away. Arsenal could really do with getting Lewis-Skelly feeding a more advanced Eze.

8.11pm BST

11 mins: Mukau tries to be a bit fancy in midfield, gives the ball away, and fouls Eze as he tries to win it back.

8.10pm BST

9 mins: Eze, on the left, gets past his man nicely but falls over just as he enters the penalty area. Probably a genuine fall rather than a dive – he didn’t even look at the referee in hope.

8.09pm BST

7 mins: A tasty cross from Arsenal’s right tests Ozer in the Lille goal, and he comes for it, flaps a bit, and just deflects it beyond his goal, where it falls to a defender.

8.08pm BST

6 mins: This time Madueke comes infield and finds a nice pass into the penalty area, but Guimaraes can’t take it in his stride, Lille pounce upon the ball and break fast and well, but without crafting a significant chance.

8.05pm BST

4 mins: Arsenal have the ball on the right. Madueke passes back to Rice, who gives it back to him, gets it back from him, gives it back to him, gets it back from him and gives it back to him. At which point Madueke slips, falls over, accidentally handles the ball and the referee gives a free-kick.

8.02pm BST

2 mins: Lille kick off, keep the ball for 45 seconds and then pass it back to their keeper, who biffs it left-footed down the flank into a quarter of the pitch with no Lille players in it at all.

8.01pm BST

1 min: Peeeeeep!

8.00pm BST

Right then. Hands shaken, coin tossed, pennants exchanged, huddles broken. It’s time.

7.56pm BST

The players are in the tunnel! Football is but a few minutes away now.

7.45pm BST

“With the Eurostar links close by both grounds is it time to call this the St Pancras-ico?” wonders Chris Walker. The Eurostarby, perhaps?

7.43pm BST

Most of Mikel Arteta’s pre-match chat with TNT Sports focuses on Ken Friar, Arsenal’s life president, whose death aged 92 was announced today. He was, Arteta says, “the soul of this football club. This stadium wouldn’t be built if it wasn’t for him. The legacy is immense.”

7.33pm BST

Lovely night for football, this. About 16C as I type, dipping very slightly perhaps to 15C by the final whistle. No risk of rain. That’s the Met Office’s predictions, not my own. From where I’m sitting, all I can say is that the night looks dark.

7.09pm BST

Olivier Giroud has a chat:

Definitely a special moment. This kind of warm welcome when I just got off the coach meant a lot to me. We will need to be really compact and try to catch them on the counter-attack. We need to close the gap between our lines, be compact and just try to be efficient up front. I just love the game and as long as my body still allows me a little nit I’m still going really strong. I just want to enjoy every single moment. This one is special and I just want to enjoy it.

7.02pm BST

Also happening tonight under the watchful eye of Guardian’s crack liveblogging squad: England play Greece in the second leg of their women’s World Cup qualifying play-off with Rob Smyth plugged in here:

Related: England v Greece: Women’s World Cup qualifying playoff, second leg – live

While John Brewin is watching Atletico Madrid’s home game against Manchester United in the Champions League here:

Related: Atlético Madrid v Manchester United: Champions League – live

6.58pm BST

The teams! The teams have been named and here indeed are those names that have been named, with Arsenal making five changes and bringing 18-year-olds Malik Hashi and Ceadach O’Neill onto the bench, while Lille’s bench is where Olivier Giroud has ended up:

Arsenal: Raya, Timber, Konsa, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly, Guimaraes, Rice, Merino, Eze, Madueke, Gyokeres. Subs: Arrizabalaga, Meslier, White, Calafiori, Mosquera, Salmon, Odegaard, Hashi, Saka, Dowman, Havertz, O’Neill.Lille: Ozer; Goffi, Ngoy, Alexsandro, Perraud; Mukau, Bentaleb, Andre; Bakwa, Ueda, Heraldsson. Subs: Gill, Sajous, Srdanović, Giroud, Sahraoui, Kjærgaard, Başar Önal, Nianzou, Verdonk, Cossier, Perrin, Diaoune.Referee: Felix Zwayer (Germany).

Updated at 8.34pm BST

6.30pm BST

Preamble Hello world! Tonight we witness history being made. Lille have played 71 games in the Champions League and Arsenal 241, but this is the first time they have played each other. OK, it’s not the kind of history we’re likely to be telling our grandchildren about many years hence, but history it remains.

This meeting is particularly fortunate for Olivier Giroud – he called it “a blessing” when he spoke to the media yesterday – who returns to his former club for the first time since he left to join Chelsea in 2020, after six years, 180 games and 73 goals, having turned 40 a fortnight ago. “I had to leave in order to play at the 2018 World Cup,” he said yesterday. “I was really sad when I left the club but I had to make that choice, and it was one of the toughest ones in my career, but it was important and necessary for the rest of my career.” It also seems quite fortunate for Arsenal – Lille may be second in Ligue 1 with a record uncannily similar to Arsenal’s in the Premier League (same number games, same goal difference, Arsenal have one more win and one draw fewer) but they have lost 10 of their last 12 games against English teams, and all of their last seven in the Champions League.

Arsenal are without Piero Hincapié and Martín Zubimendi, both of whom they managed to injure themselves during a post-match training session after they beat Leeds on Saturday. To lose one might be regarded as a misfortune, to lose both looks like carelessness. Here’s something from Ed Aarons on that and other news:

Related: Hincapié and Zubimendi out after warm-down injuries but Arsenal get Saliba boost