Bernd Leno makes Arsenal bow in behind closed doors friendly against Crawley

Bernd Leno made his first non-competitive appearance as an Arsenal player as a Gunners XI took on Crawley in a behind closed doors friendly at London Colney on Wednesday.

The German goalkeeper, a £22million summer signing from Bayer Leverkusen last month, played a third of the informal match between the two sides, which it is understood was played in three 30-minutes thirds rather than in a traditional format.

That gave new Arsenal manager Unai Emery the chance to take a closer look at a host of first teamers, with summer signings Matteo Guendouzi and Sokratis Papastathopoulos both featuring. Leno was not the only man to play between the sticks. Petr Cech and Emiliano Martinez also featured.

The match ended in a convincing 9-0 win for the Gunners, as the likes of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Jeff Reine-Adelaide got on the scoresheet to follow on from an 8-0 thrashing of Boreham Wood on Saturday.

Arsenal will travel to Singapore, where they will play friendly matches against Atletico Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain, later this week before rounding off their pre-season with fixtures against Chelsea and Sevilla.