A lightning-quick start followed by a lacklustre hour somehow still sees Arsenal beat Huddersfield Town 5-0.

Perhaps the scoreline 5-0 flatters Arsenal since three of their goals all arrived in the space of three minutes. It certainly didn’t look as if the Gunners were going to win by such a margin earlier in the game.

Arsenal were given an early wake-up call when Huddersfield won a corner within the first minute. Laurent Koscielny dealt with the danger.

However, it was the visitors who should have been prepared as Arsenal charged up the other end and Aaron Ramsey flicked the ball to Alexandre Lacazette. Laca ran straight through Huddersfield’s defence. The striker made no mistake and slotted home the goal in the fourth minute.

The Gunners continued to gel and play the visitors off the pitch, much like they did against Spurs, with Sead Kolasinac in particular looking much more comfortable than Sunday’s trip to Turf Moor.

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In fact, most of the team, except for Alexis Sanchez, were playing some very, very lovely football during the opening 20 minutes. Rambo looked confident and strong off the ball, with the two midfielders constantly pushing Huddersfield back, making it almost impossible for the visitors to get forward during the opening exchanges.

Mesut Ozil, meanwhile, drifted in and out of the spaces, which Huddersfield were allowing him to do more and more often. They would come to regret this later on.

The Gunners weren’t looking too vulnerable in defence but Huddersfield were looking dangerous from set-pieces – our Achilles heel.

Arsene Wenger’s men had backed off since the early goal but there was a distinct feeling that we were very much in control of the tie, which is something of a rarity these days. This feeling didn’t last for long, of course, because we’re Arsenal.

25 minutes gone and Alexis was yet to make any sort of impact on the game.

The Chilean made a snazzy-looking turn on the edge of the box but fell over.

In the 29th minute, Gooners collectively held their breaths when Shkodran Mustafi went down after receiving a bad tackle. Fortunately, he got up.

Kolasinac missed an open goal minutes later after Lacazette chipped in a cheeky shot, which was cleared off the line. It was an audacious attempt but would have been unreal if it had managed to creep over the line.

However, Arsenal weren’t just sharp at the front, in the 39th minute, Kos got back to block a chance from Quaner.

Saying this, during the final 10 minutes of the first half, we’d definitely taken our foot off the gas.

Despite looking fine in the first half, Laca was brought off at half time in favour of Olivier Giroud.

The second half started off incredibly stretched. Huddersfield had a go at one end, forcing Petr Cech into a great save, and then the next minute Giroud almost had a tap-in at the other end.

Arsenal had a nervy moment when Cech was then forced to ‘clear’ the ball into his own bar after a high ball landed in a dangerous area. Yikes…

The Gunners continued to struggle without Laca’s movement after the break. Although it didn’t help that Alexis was acting as if he’d never seen a football before in his life.

This isn’t to say Arsenal didn’t continue to get chances – we just fluffed them. For example, Giroud almost netted an offside goal, which would have been hilarious, but the ball came off the post.

As the clock ticked past the hour-mark, there was a real sense of anxiety both at the Emirates and online. A 1-0 lead can be dangerous and the dominance we displayed in the opening 20 minutes had disappeared. We were now left with chance after chance but without Laca’s quality, it was looking as if a second would never come our way. While Huddersfield looked increasingly likely to equal the score.

Finally, in the 68th minute, Giroud found the back of the net thanks to a mouth-watering move from Ozil which drove play forward and earned him a lovely assist.

A minute later, Alexis woke up and scored thanks to another assist from our German playmaker.

https://twitter.com/ImHereOnTheMoon/status/935979928608296960

It had quickly become the Mesut Ozil show at the Emirates after the 29-year-old then netted his own goal – making it 4-0 the Arsenal with a superb finish.

https://twitter.com/Arsenal/status/935981501895786497

Giroud then made it five minutes before the end thanks to an assist from Kolasinac.

What a second half and what a performance from not just Ozil but a few of the lads. Rambo had a great game and, while Giroud was a tad frustrating after he came on, he scored a brace.

Alexis wasn’t great, neither was Xhaka but we pushed through and got an emphatic win.

Mesut Ozil though… what a player.

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