The Warm-Up: Nicolas Pepe rescues Arsenal, but Emery may be beyond help

A consistent thread of Arsenal’s season has been their declining ability to create chances and their increasing susceptibility to allowing their opponents to have them. But maybe all they need to do is win a few free-kicks 20 yards from goal each match.

Last night, Nicolas Pepe announced his arrival as an Arsenal player of substance with two magnificent free-kicks to turn an embarrassing 2-1 loss to Vitoria into a slightly chaotic 3-2 home win which leaves Arsenal top of Europa League Group F with three wins from three. Two inch-perfect set-pieces which transformed the night.

It was a big moment for Pepe, who had been the subject of increasing scrutiny around his £72m price tag following a slow start to the season. Which was always nonsense. Some players take time to adapt to new surroundings and leagues and it’s not even November yet.

But even if it was a “good ebening” in the end for Arsenal, it probably wasn’t for Unai Emery. Take two swings of the boot from Pepe out of the equation and you aren’t left with much. A fifth goal of the season for Gabriel Martinelli briefly enlivened another pretty sterile performance - and even against Vitoria, Mesut Ozil couldn’t get a look in. The situation is clearly untenable. One of them will go, and at this stage Ozil may fancy his chances of waiting it out, especially given that his name was ringing around Emirates Stadium in an apparent show of defiance against the manager.

Last night, a former wearer of the No. 10 short at Arsenal had a pop at Emery’s management style. Speaking in the BT studio, Robin van Persie said:

Leaving aside the fact that Van Persie’s opinion is so easily swayed by one video and what that likely means for humanity with the coming deepfake phenomenon, it’s clear that Emery has major issues, as this detailed look at Arsenal’s performance levels since his arrival demonstrated this week.

You can’t rely on Pepe to score two free-kicks every match - although what a magnificent sight it was.

Lazio’s day in Glasgow began with a worryingly large number of their supporters making Nazi salutes as they marched through town, which only made it more delicious when Celtic came from 1-0 down to beat them 2-1 in the 89th minute when Christopher Jullien headed home.

The real moment of the match, though, was a remarkable save by Fraser Forster to deny Danilo Cataldi an equaliser in injury time.

With seven points from three games, Celtic top the group and are one point ahead of Cluj, with Lazio a further three behind.

Manchester United are also top of their Europa League group after a 1-0 win over Partizan last night, with Anthony Martial scoring from the spot. And that's about all you need to know about that one.

Someone please send Harry Maguire on a captaincy refresher course.

And you can’t help but feel for the man Maguire pushed out of Manchester United this morning....

The good people at Jeep have kindly decided to pay Juventus more for their shirt sponsorship deal because the team are playing so well.

What a classy gesture!

Nah. This ain’t it, chief.

Jack Rodwell, last seen making no friends on the Netflix documentary about Sunderland (although apparently he also played for Blackburn last season) is remarkably set to sign for Roma. Unless this is an elaborate joke by their wacky social media team.

Tonight’s Premier League football sees Southampton host Leicester City - while the premium match of the weekend is Liverpool v Tottenham on Sunday.