Nigeria International Alex Iwobi was on target for Arsenal Football Club, but it wasn’t enough to help the team avoid second defeat of the Europa league campaign.

The Gunners traveled to France and suffered a 3-1 defeat to French side, Rennes in the first leg of the round 16 at the Roazhon Park on Thursday evening.

Arsenal opened the scoring in the fourth minutes of the encounter through Iwobi , before they were reduced to ten men after Sokratis Papastathopoulos sent off in the 41st minute for a second booking offense.  

Rennes took advantage of Papastathopoulos dismissal and drew level in the 42nd minute through Benjamin Bourigeaud whose glorious strike went into top corner.

The hosts doubled their lead in the 65th minute when Nacho Monreal deflected Mehdi Zeffane’s cross from the right past his own goalkeeper Petr Cech in goal.

With Two minutes left on the clock ,Ismaila Sarr gave the French side a commanding lead as he scored the third with powerful header to leave Arsenal with mountain to climb in the return leg at the Emirates.