In the early matches on the first night of action in Europe's second-tier tournament, German side Bayer Leverkusen produced the most devastating performance, hammering Nice 6-2, while Dutch team AZ Alkmaar pulled off a fine 1-0 win at Napoli.

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta had named a strong side at the Allianz Stadion, where 3,000 home fans watched on, with Thomas Partey making his full debut for the Gunners in Thursday's Group B opener.

But, after a mistake by Leno gifted a goal to Taxiarchis Fountas, the Gunners had to rally from behind with David Luiz and Aubameyang on target as Arsenal left Austria with a 2-1 win.

Having spoken on the eve of the game about the reasons behind axing Mesut Ozil from his Europa League and Premier League squads, Arteta must have been worried by the lack of creativity in the opening hour.

Ozil was tweeting along to the match from home and offered his best wishes to Leno, whose position as Arsenal's number one split the fanbase when Emiliano Martinez was sold to Aston Villa in the summer.

In Leverkusen, Leon Bailey's fantastic pass gave Nadiem Amiri a tap-in to open the scoring for the Bundesliga side and Lucas Alario finished off a slick move to net the second.

A low shot beyond Lukas Hradecky from Amine Gouiri halved the deficit, but Moussa Diaby dispatched Ezequiel Palacios' pass across the box to restore Leverkusen's two-goal buffer.

Karim Bellarabi's late brace, followed by Florian Wirtz's debut European effort, completed the rout. A 90th-minute riposte from Alexis Claude-Maurice was a mere consolation.

AZ Alkmaar eked out a particularly laudable victory in Napoli with a Dani De Wit goal while being short of a whole team of players with coronavirus infections, while Mario Goetze scored again only for his PSV Eindhoven side to still be beaten 2-1 by Granada.

Benfica came from behind to beat Lech Poznan 4-2 while Roma battled back from one-down to defeat Young Boys 2-1 in Switzerland.

Australian Associated Press