Football fans are considered passionate souls, but they can go overboard at times and create a ruckus, making the atmosphere hostile as well. That is exactly what happened ahead of Arsenal's Europa League clash against FC Cologne on Thursday.

Around 20,000 Cologne fans reportedly travelled towards London though only 3,000 tickets were provided to the German club. The situation spiralled out of control as the fans clashed with police officers, breaking barriers put in place. 

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The situation escalated to such an extent that additional security forces had to be deployed to bring the unruly fans under control. At least five people have reportedly been arrested in the entire episode.

Cologne fans also created problems inside the stadium: Clashes with Arsenal fans were reported from the Emirates stadium. 

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was quite surprised to see such large number of Cologne fans.

Arsenal, Cologne Fans, Europa League
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"They were very clever. I don't know how they managed to infiltrate our fans and get everywhere but they did that very well. Were the problems created by people who had no tickets? I don't know. But certainly they (Cologne) had more people here than tickets so that was certainly the cause," he said at the post-match news conference," Wenger said.

The match got delayed by an hour due to the ruckus. When the match resumed, it was Arsenal who picked up an impressive win despite going one down initially.

They managed to get past the visiting team after some brilliant performance from their stars including Alexis Sanchez, who scored a sublime goal. The final score read 3-1.

However, more than the match, it was Cologne fans who bagged more headlines.