An oddly lifeless interview with Jack Wilshere, who mumbles monotonously for a bit. Here’s some of what he said:

That was the plan before we started the group: we knew we had the quality to get out of it and wanted to do it as soon as possible. We’re not delighted with the point, but we’ll take it. In the first half I thought they were the better team, had the better chances. In the second half we were better, probably not as good as recent performances. I’m enjoying my football and enjoying being back in an Arsenal shirt. We have to be better when we go to City, but we’ll be ready for it. We’ve got confidence in each other and in ourselves, and we’ll go there full of confidence and hopefully get something out of the game.

That was an oddly lifeless match, given that it featured a fair amount of goalmouth incident – there was a bar-hitting here, a goalline clearance there, solo runs, glaring misses. Brief highlights would probably look pretty tasty. But there was a lack of intensity throughout, and from the home side at times an apparent phobia of the penalty area. It was not entirely unencouraging, but almost entirely uninspiring. Still, Arsenal are through, so they’ll be chirpy I suppose.

90+5 mins: Nope.

90+4 mins: The away fans whistle. Arsenal work the ball slowly forward. Can they?

90+2 mins: Giroud lays back to Coquelin, whose tragically mishit effort bounces way wide.

90+1 mins: We’re into stoppage time, and this match is four minutes away from its conclusion.

90 mins: Arsenal just hate crossing. They have got into any number of fine crossing positions today, but have generally chosen to beat the full-back a couple of times and then lay it back.

89 mins: Walcott’s corner is only just too high for Holding, who brows it into touch. Red Star bring Pesic on for Radonjic. And in Germany it’s Koln 5-2 Bate Borisov. Show-offs.

88 mins: Maitland-Niles has the ball on the left. He heads outside, he cuts inside, and he heads outside again, eventually winning the corner. The crowd finds its voice.

86 mins: Red Star are bringing Racic on, and bringing Srnic off.

85 mins: Wilshere is thwacked from behind, no free kick. Then Stojkovic goes down with what appears to be cramp. The crowd boos.

83 mins: This sums up that attack rather well: “Another great opportunity for our striker but … but … Oh.”

82 mins: Meanwhile it’s now Koln 4-2 Bate Borisov. Six goals! Goalhogs.

81 mins: Boakye catches Debuchy as he tries to win the ball. Not a free-kick, the referee decides, but the defender goes down and when Red Star win the ball back a moment later there is a simple pass available for Boakye, whose marker is prostrate. The ball is played, and Boakye settles himself and then … shoots wide of the near post!

79 mins: Nearly-chance! Giroud passes to Elneny, who dinks the ball forward to Walcott, who swings his right foot and … misses the ball completely.

79 mins: Walcott has the ball on the right of the penalty area, with three defenders immediately to his left and four Arsenal players beyond them. He tries a low cross, bizarrely, when a chip to the back stick was the way forward.

76 mins: After many Arsenal passes Wilshere lifts the ball into the area, and Walcott gets plenty of power on his header but not quite enough accuracy to test Borjan.

74 mins: Wilshere runs towards the penalty area, ignores a runner to his right and is well tackled by Gobeljic. He jumps up, dusts himself down, and tackles Gobeljic back, less well. Free kick.

73 mins: The game is petering out a little, particularly unfortunate as there is nearly 20 minutes still to play.

70 mins: Holding leads with a forearm as he jumps with Srnic, and gets booked for it.

69 mins: And Red Star make a change as well. Kanga goes off – and he’s absolutely furious about it, saying some stuff in an aggressive tone of voice (sadly I’ve no idea what he was saying) and kicking an inanimate object or two. Milic is on.

68 mins: Arsenal make their first substitution, bringing Willoff off and Nketiah on.

67 mins: Giroud wins a header in the penalty area, but the referee penalises him for jumping too well, or something. Free kick.

64 mins: Wilshere has a shot cleared off the line! Red Star’s defence was undone by Maitland-Niles’ lovely turn, and Wilshere steals the ball from his team-mate and lifts it over the goalkeeper, but Le Tallec gets back to acrobatically volley clear!

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63 mins: Koln now lead Bate Borisov 3-2. They’re having all the fun at the Müngersdorfer.

61 mins: Moments later Wilshere’s low cross is cut out by the sliding Savic, and the ball bounces up into his right hand. The referee is again unmoved.

60 mins: Wilshere goes down over Randonjic’s leg inside the penalty area, but the referee tells him to get up. “Fun tidbit of trivia,” promises Marko Ristic, who is on a plane somewhere. “Vujadin Savic’s dad (the Red Star Belgrade center back with No90 currently playing), Dusan Dule Savic is a Red Star Belgrade legend and scored the last time these two sides met in London at Highbury in the 1978-79 Uefa Cup round of 16. Red Star won 2-1 on aggregate and ended up losing in the final to Borussia Monchengladbach. Either way, Vujadin is very motivated to score in London to match his dad’s feat and he nearly did with his header that hit the bar.” That is an interesting titbit.

57 mins: Further adventures in bad decision-making: this time Willock brings the ball forward, but with Giroud thundering forwards to his left and Walcott to his right, Willock instead shoots weakly and woefully, well wide from 25 yards.

56 mins: Ooooh! Srnic slides the ball in from the right, Elneny slides in but can’t stop it, and somehow it runs through Boakye’s legs. It then transpires that the linesman was flagging, so it wouldn’t have mattered.

54 mins: A fine but just overlong run from Nelson takes him into the penalty area, where he is tackled. He should probably have played in Coquelin to his left, but can be forgiven a little overexcitement.

54 mins: It’s now Koln 2-2 Bate Borisov, which is a good thing from Arsenal’s perspective.

53 mins: Now it’s Arsenal’s turn to hog the ball and push and probe. They panic the defence a couple of times, with Walcott sending in a lovely cross from the right that a defender puts behind before Giroud can turn it in.

51 mins: They do eventually have a shot, but Srnic’s effort was from wide on the right, wasn’t very hard, and generally didn’t make life very hard for Macey.

50 mins: Red Star have been hogging possession for the last few minutes, but all they’ve had to show for it is a throw-in out on the left.

47 mins: Giroud has the first shot of the second half, from 25 yards or so, but it flies well over the bar.

46 mins: The visitors start half two. There have been no intervaledictorian changes. Intervalish? Intervally?

The players are back out. A better 45 minutes await (fingers crossed).

“Can you direct us to a clip of Evra punching a supporter?” pleads Charles Antaki. “I’m not one for violence, but it might be more entertaining than this has been.” This is as clear an image as you’re going to find. It looks worryingly Cantonaesque, but there’s a story to be told about what the fans were doing that so enraged Evra, an ultra-experienced 36-year-old not known for acts of wanton violence.

45+3 mins: That’s the end of half one. Arsenal haven’t been terrible, but neither have they ever put together a period of sustained attacking. Meanwhile the visitors have had the best chance of the game, and also come closest to scoring.

45+1 mins: We’re into stoppage time, of which there will be about three minutes.

45 mins: Red Star miss a sitter! Boakye bursts between the centre-backs and is found by a smart pass, and he sprints away from Holding and into the penalty area. With Macey coming out and an entire world of opportunity opening up in front of him, he sidefoots well wide!