Arsene Wenger’s half time adjustment proved the difference as a stuttering Arsenal overturned a first half deficit en route to a 3-1 win over a Cologne team who were lacking the enthusiasm of their supporters.
Subpar Alexis
Contrary to Elneny’s performance was Alexis Sanchez, who was frankly dreadful save for his brilliant goal.
Alexis made a number of poor choices on the ball, holding on to it for too long, dribbling down blind alleys, selecting the wrong pass, or overhitting his intended target.
In his defence, his preseason preparation is weeks behind everyone else’s, he hasn’t played much competitive football recently, and one can only speculate about his mental state having been hours away from securing a move to Manchester City, only for it to fall through at the death.
However, sometimes all you need is one moment of quality to decide a match, and Alexis provided that.
While Alexis is a fierce competitor and will always snap into a strong-minded zone where he makes it his mission to score at some point in a match, there is a danger that he won’t be his old self for the duration this season.
He may not fully mentally check out, like Emmanuel Adebayor in the 2008/09 season, but as his contract winds down and Arsenal’s chances of silverware start to dwindle, he may start running the ball down to the cornerflag on his Arsenal career, wanting to avoid injury and not overly exert himself ahead of his big summer Bosman move and sizeable sign-on fee.
He’ll still score plenty of goals, but won’t have as much of a transformative effect on the collective as he did during the first half of last season.