Arsenal have managed another emphatic win, this time against Watford, this week and it was pretty enjoyable to watch, but what did we learn?
Mesut Ozil is officially better than Eric Cantona…maybe
Ozil has reached 50 Premier League assists faster than anyone else in the history of the competition after delivering the free-kick that led to Shkodran Mustafi’s headed goal against Watford.
Despite the German ‘nicking a living’ while at Arsenal, he’s doing pretty well on the pitch. This season, he’s provided 10 assists over all competitions, which might not be his highest tally yet but places him in joint fourth in the league behind the likes of Kevin de Bruyne for Manchester City (14), Leroy Sane (11), and teammate Henrikh Mkhitaryan (9).
Ozil has copped his fair share of criticism since he signed for Arsenal in 2013. Even when he has amazing games, which happens more often than the media would lead you to believe, he’s rarely praised.
I don’t know, maybe it’s because he came from Real Madrid for £42.5m, which was actually a large amount of money five years ago, or people think he’s ‘lazy’ because of his ‘body language’ despite the playmaker being proven to run more than most of the Arsenal team.
Whatever it is that most people seem to dislike about Ozil, Gooners adore him. There’s a reason why no one really cares that he’s being paid £300k-per-week.
Even though his season has been up and down again, he’s still managed to reach 50 assists faster than Cantona, Fabregas and many others during his Arsenal career.
Now that the 29-year-old has signed a new contract, his performances have been solid and I’m sure they’ll continue to improve with the team’s confidence.
Both he and Henrikh Mkhitaryan are really finding their rhythm now and learning how to play with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in front of them. Again, in Miki’s case.
Mustafi can literally do anything
Anyone who has push notifications turned on for Arsenal’s official Twitter account will have seen that they accidentally tweeted out an update around 20 minutes ahead of kick off claiming that Mustafi had already picked up a red card.
Obviously, they deleted it and then had to clarify that this actually hadn’t happened – the tweet had been a mistake.
As it happens though, Mustafi had a pretty eventful game, scoring a header (assisted by Ozil) in the first half to put Arsenal 1-0 ahead, making some big tackles throughout the match, and picking up a yellow card in the second half.
The Watford win is a prime example of how brilliant Mustafi is when he’s ‘on’. Often, the centre-back can be a little sloppy, slow and disappointing, which is pretty annoying considering Arsenal spent £35m on him in 2016. However, he was solid against the Hornets and showed what he’s made of.
How many players can get a red card before kick off and then score during that very same match?
Arsenal still absolutely need one or two new, experienced defenders in the summer, if only because Gabriel hasn’t really been replaced, Per Mertesacker is retiring and Laurent Koscielny’s Achilles is on its last legs.
But if Mustafi can consistently perform well and show the grit, as well as skill, he needs to be a first choice centre-back, then all the better.
Arsenal have cajones – Deeney does not
Arsenal fans were cackling at Troy Deeney for most of the match. After his ‘cajones’ comments back in October, you would have thought he would come out fighting, but he didn’t.
“I’ve heard Wenger’s already blaming (the decision) as the reason why they lost. I’m not going to be the one to tell Mr Wenger about himself, but there’s a reason why they lost and it wasn’t because of one penalty,” Deeney said last year, after Watford beat Arsenal 2-1.
“I’ll have to watch what I say. It’s (having) a bit of cojones, a bit of nuts.”
Rob Holding and Mustafi bullied Deeney throughout Arsenal’s 3-0 win on Sunday and all the striker could do is sit on the floor flapping his arms at the referee.
It only got funnier when the 29-year-old came forward to take a penalty in the second half and kicked it weakly at Petr Cech.
Not only is this hilarious because of Deeney’s comments but Cech has mostly been poor this season and has failed to save a single penalty since he joined Arsenal in 2015.
The spot-kick was so bad that even the 35-year-old, who almost threw the ball directly to a Watford player earlier that same game, was able to save it.
Amazingly, Cech is now the first goalkeeper in the history of the Premier League to (finally) keep 200 clean sheets and it was all because of Deeney’s penalty.
I’m not sure whether you call that karma, modern art or just pure comedy but whatever it was, I liked it.
Can’t pass, won’t pass
Alex Iwobi’s consistent game time is perplexing to most.
The 21-year-old has been poor this season and, against Watford, he was at his worst.
Twice in the first half alone the forward refused to pass the ball, despite having options around him, and he lost it in crucial areas.
When Aubameyang netted Arsenal’s second goal in the second half, Iwobi was actually closer to the open goal but the former Dortmund striker actually chose to round the keeper and slot the ball home himself instead.
To be fair, I wouldn’t have trusted Iwobi to score it either. Although, scoring is kind of Aubameyang’s job. He’s far more likely to net the ball than Iwobi.
Despite insisting that he wanted to work on his shooting last year, there’s little evidence to suggest that Iwobi’s done this.
“I wish I could get more goals,” he said.
“I am working on this.”
“Also, I wish I could more games, but we have a lot of world-class players at the club.”
The Nigeria international has one off-target shot against Watford.
Hopefully, the young winger was only on the pitch because other players, like Aaron Ramsey, were being rested ahead of the AC Milan clash on Thursday.
After going 2-0 ahead at the San Siro, Arsenal have a legitimate chance of actually winning the Europa League now and it appears that Wenger’s taking it seriously.
Laurent Koscielny was rested as well and Jack Wilshere only came on for the final minutes of the Watford clash.
Miki’s on fire
Mkhitaryan scored his second Arsenal goal in two games against Watford. Not only that, but he also provided his sixth assist when he slotted the ball beautifully to Aubameyang – his former Dortmund teammate.
Despite some Gooners being underwhelmed with Miki’s efforts since he joined Arsenal in January as part of Alexis Sanchez’s swap deal, he’s actually doing better than the Chilean. In fact, Alexis has been disappointing since his move to Manchester United, which is quite funny. He’s only scored once and assisted twice.
He’s also managed the third-most assists in the Premier League behind Manchester City’s Kevin de Bruyne (14) and Leroy Sane (11).
Although Miki still has areas he needs improve upon, his stats show that he’s getting into the right positions, learning to play with his new teammates and gaining confidence. Both his goals against AC Milan and Watford were brilliant – not just easy tap-ins by any means, so it seems he’s growing into his role at Arsenal now.
Along with Petr Cech, who kept his 200th clean sheet and saved a penalty, Miki was the highest rated Arsenal player on WhoScored. And this is despite only completing 72% of his passes.
Everything’s going worryingly well at the moment… I’m concerned.