Napoli v Arsenal: Europa League quarter-final, second leg – live!

38 min: The stadium – which is far from full – has just about fallen silent. You could hear Arsenal’s players whoop in delight as they cavorted in celebration of Lacazette’s free kick. Napoli seem stunned. Kolasinac nearly bursts past Callejon down the left but commits a stupid foul and the pressure’s off the hosts.

Lacazette gets up and takes it himself. And what a hit! He whips it round the wall and into the top right. But what was Meret doing? His feet were planted, he made no effort whatsoever to dive for the ball. Completely flummoxed! He was leaning the other way, and couldn’t check his momentum. Arsenal have their away goal, and now Napoli need four!

35 min: Mkhitaryan’s first act is to set Lacazette running towards the Napoli box. The striker’s upended by Zielinski. A free kick in a central position, 25 yards out.

34 min: Ramsey is the picture of frustration as he limps off. Mkhitaryan, who won this competition a couple of years ago with Manchester United, comes on to make his 50th appearance for Arsenal. To be fair, that’s not a bad deputy to bring on.

32 min: Ramsey sits down. He’s just challenged Zielinski for a waist-high bouncing ball, and pulled up holding his left hamstring. This doesn’t look good for Arsenal’s main man.

30 min: This is good fun. Lacazette dribbles into the Napoli box from the left and is dispossessed. Allan drives up the other end but is checked by Maitland-Niles. Arsenal counter the counter, Ramsey teeing up Aubameyang to the right of the D. The striker hits a first-time volley that he doesn’t quite catch with enough power, and it sails straight down Meret’s throat.

28 min: Koscielny is lumbering deep, playing everyone on as Zielinski sends a cross in from the left. The ball drops to Milik, who has to at least get his header on target, but in attempting to plant it into the top left, sends it miserably wide. Napoli are beginning to ask questions, though.

26 min: Xhaka tries to go past Zielinksi and is blocked for his trouble. A clash of knees which requires him to roll about a bit. He’ll be good to go in a few seconds. And indeed he’s up again. Moving on.

24 min: Major Ancelotti’s army nearly reap the benefit of all that marching up and down the square. Their first period of possession in Arsenal’s half. And then Insigne dinks a cute ball down the inside-left channel, releasing Milik into the area. Milik dinks delicately over Cech and into the net, but he’s rightly flagged for offside. Still, what a finish.

22 min: The first lull of the match as Kolasinac goes down requiring a soaking from the magic sponge. He’s soon up and about again. “There’s something pleasingly military about Carlo Ancellotti in the technical area,” opines Charles Antaki. “He looks like a major called out of the officers’ mess to cast his eye over a bunch of adjutants making too much noise on the parade ground.”

20 min: This is a lovely open game, and goodness knows who’s going to score first. Callejon makes a nuisance of himself down the inside-right channel and very nearly threads a pass to Insigne on the edge of the box. But Arsenal clear.

18 min: And then it’s Arsenal racing up the other end! Aubameyang zips down the right wing, with Napoli very light at the back. He hooks low towards the centre, in the hope of setting up Lacazette for a tap-in, but Maksimovic is on hand to block the cross. Napoli clear their lines.

17 min: Good work by Kolasinac down the left to win a corner. Torreira takes long, but Ruiz robs Aubameyang and suddenly Napoli are racing upfield on the break! Koulibaly, on the left, sprays a fine diagonal pass towards Callejon, who enters the Arsenal box and batters towards the bottom right. Cech does very well to kick it out for a corner, from which nothing happens.

15 min: Ghoulam launches a monster throw down the left flank. It nearly releases Insigne, who tries to diddle Maitland-Niles with a gorgeous spin, but the Arsenal man reads the situation and doesn’t buy the dummy.

13 min: Napoli have yet to put a coherent attack together. Already they look a bit nervous. The crowd certainly sound edgy. It’s a bit early to start panicking. “Wholeheartedly agree about the new badge not having quite the impact of the old,” begins Dan Fermi. “As I recall, it was revamped because no one owned the copyright on it, and of course in these heady days, that would be missing a trick. To be fair, though, the old one was a bit tricky to draw on one’s bag when one was a schoolboy.”

11 min: This is all Arsenal. Kolasinac is sent into space down the left by Ramsey’s cute flick. He powers down the flank but overruns the ball into touch. Arsenal keep threatening to get in behind Napoli, but the final pass has been lacking so far. All very promising for the Gunners.

9 min: Xhaka and Lacazette combine well down the inside-left channel, nearly opening Napoli up. Not quite. Then another phase of attack, as Ramsey chases a long ball down the inside-left channel. He clatters into Maksimovic and demands a penalty, but he’s not getting it. It would have been very soft, though there was a little contact after Ramsey had miscontrolled the ball. Ramsey’s not happy.

8 min: Xhaka delivers with plenty of whip, causing Meret to panic and punch clear. The ball lands at the feet of Ramsey, who shoots through a thicket. The effort deflects harmlessly wide right; goal kick. But Arsenal have started strongly here, and are pressing Napoli back. A lot of whistling.

7 min: Maitland-Niles probes down the right, checks back, and is upended clumsily by Ghoulam. A free kick that’s basically a corner. From which …

5 min: Ramsey has a little dribble across the front of the Napoli box. He doesn’t manage to get a shot away, but it’s enough to irritate the crowd, who are now aware that Arsenal are here and will be making life as difficult as possible for the hosts. Meanwhile Anita Mulinder thinks we should give Sokratis the benefit of the doubt with his choice of bevvy. “He needs something stronger to wash the kettlebell down with.” She’s here all week, ladies and gentlemen. Try the thin pizza.

3 min: Arsenal touch the ball! And win a free kick out on the left. Xhaka hoicks it high towards the far post, and Kolasinac manages to hook it back into the middle from the byline to the right of goal. But Koulibaly is positioned perfectly to clear. A brisk start!

2 min: Arsenal haven’t touched the ball yet. They’re playing in red shorts and frankly it looks wrong.

And we’re off! Within 20 seconds, Zielinksi is romping down the left. He pulls a ball back for Insigne, who tries to feed Callejon down the right instead of shooting. A heavy pass results in a goal kick. Napoli with the desire they need to show this evening, early doors.

The teams are out! Napoli are in their blue shirts, ruined by over elaborate patterns and a neon-green trim. They’re an appalling mess, to be honest, a horrible sickly reminder of all those garish 1990s change shirts. Such a shame because their kit is usually a peach. Anyway, there’s a rare old atmosphere in the Stadio San Paolo, like that’s breaking news. A sea of flags. Noise. We’ll be off in a minute! “Put Sokratis’s choice of beverage aside for a moment,” insists Brian Russell. “What on earth are those brown slip-on shoes doing in his cubby hole? That’s the real story.” I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and suggest they’re old-gold loafers. That sounds a little bit better, doesn’t it.

Unai Emery speaks. He wanted to score more goals last week, but it was also important not to concede an away goal, and they managed that. They want to score today, to win today. They are ready for anything that can happen. They are going to use their heart, but also their head.

A brief peek inside the Arsenal sanctum. As you can see, they’ll be playing in their famous first-choice shirts tonight. Everyone apart from Sokratis has some bottles of pink isotonic bevvy lined up. Sokratis has two red cans to get through instead. Not sure what’s in them. Coke comes in a red can. So does McEwan’s Export. Perhaps it’s McEwan’s Export. Laurent Koscielny has a nice enough pennant to hand over, but you can only prise so much gravitas out of that badge. Such a shame they got rid of 1949’s Victoria Concordia Crescit number, but I suppose I’m behind the times. Speaking of which, the dressing room has that sparse but fully functional feel of a 1960s municipal building about it, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’ll level with you, kick-off can’t come soon enough.

Napoli boss Carlo Ancelotti has made three changes to the team named for the first leg. Former Tottenham defender Vlad Chiriches comes in along with Faouzi Ghoulam and Arkadiusz Milik. Dropping to the bench: Mario Rui, Dries Mertens and Elseid Hysaj.

Arsenal manager Unai Emery makes just one change from the first leg. Mesut Ozil drops to the bench, making way for the much more defensive-minded Granit Xhaka.

Napoli: Meret, Maksimovic, Chiriches, Koulibaly, Ghoulam, Callejon, Allan, Fabian, Zielinski, Milik, Insigne.
Subs: Ospina, Malcuit, Rui, Verdi, Mertens, Hysaj, Younes.

Arsenal: Cech, Papastathopoulos, Koscielny, Monreal, Maitland-Niles, Torreira, Xhaka, Kolasinac, Ramsey, Lacazette, Aubameyang.
Subs: Leno, Elneny, Mkhitaryan, Ozil, Iwobi, Mustafi, Guendouzi.

Referee: Ovidiu Alin Hategan (Romania).

For those of you fond of a correct-score prediction … here are the results of all the previous matches played between these two clubs.

Arsenal 2-0 Napoli (1 Oct 2013)
Napoli 2-0 Arsenal (11 Dec 2013)
Arsenal 2-0 Napoli (11 April 2019)

Lump on, lump on. Extra time and penalties, here we come!

But Unai Emery’s increasingly confident men will be hopeful of sealing the deal long before that. Arsenal have won on five of their last nine visits to Italy, the most recent triumph coming at AC Milan last season, 2-0 en route to a 5-1 aggregate Europa League round of 16 victory. An away goal snaffled tonight would surely send them into the semis for the second year in a row.

That’s no small ask, though. Napoli are unbeaten at home in Europe this year, winning four out of five, conceding just two goals. They’ve won five of their seven home fixtures against English opposition. And you may recall them giving Liverpool all manner of problems in the Champions League groups earlier this season, both home and away.

So it should be a fine battle as second in Serie A take on fourth in the Premier League. A place in the semi-finals of the 2018/19 Europa League is at stake. It’s on!

Kick off: 9pm in Naples, 8pm BST.