Emirates Cup quick recap: Arsenal draw Napoli 2-2

Arsenal drew 2-2 in the first game of their 2013 Emirates Cup campaign, which will conclude tomorrow. The game started relatively poorly, with the home side giving up two goals in the first half hour to defensive mistakes - the first by Carl Jenkinson, then a less awful one by Lukasz Fabianski. The team wasn't great in midfield defensively, which certainly didn't help matters.

After a few substitutions partway through the second half, Arsenal started to look a bit better - that is, like an actual soccer team that knew each other and could play together. It paid off with slightly more than a quarter of an hour left in the game, as Arsenal drew a corner that Olivier Giroud scored on a nifty scissor kick. It deflected off of Bacary Sagna, but it was still pretty awesome. Just before stoppage time, Arsenal equalized off another set piece (weird, I know), as a Mikel Arteta free kick was headed and saved, but the rebound was headed again by Laurent Koscielny and into the bottom corner.

All in all, it was a bit of a disjointed first half, a better second half, and other than that...well, it was a preseason friendly. There will be a bit more of an in-depth report later, where we'll get into how preseasony it was.