Arsenal: Cech; Bellerin, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Monreal; Coquelin, Cazorla; Ramsey, Ozil, Sanchez; Walcott
Subs: Macey, Gibbs, Chambers, Debuchy, Arteta, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Giroud
—
Three second half goals moved Arsenal back into second place in the Premier League, as they beat Watford 3-0 at at Vicarage Road this afternoon.
Arsene Wenger made one change from the team that beat Man Utd 3-0 with Laurent Koscielny coming into the side ahead of Gabriel, who missed the game because of what Arsenal called illness – but Sky’s commentator said he had undergone a ‘minor operation’. There was also a place on the bench for young keeper Matt Macey with David Ospina absent.
Arsenal started brightly and had the first chance of the game in the 4th minute when Theo Walcott should have done more with a great Aaron Ramsey cross, but his header lacked conviction and Gomes claimed low down. Alexis was next to test the former Sp*rs keeper with a thumping drive that was parried away, before Petr Cech got in on the action, parrying away a Troy Deeney shot after Francis Coquelin had been bundled off the ball.
Two offsides in quick succession against Walcott showed how Arsenal were trying to find space in behind the home side’s defence, but it was Watford who managed it in the 19th minute. Deeney found space and charged into the box, only fantastic reading of the game by Laurent Koscielny prevented his pass finding a teammate who would have had a tap in.
Arsenal should have been ahead in the 29th minute when a fantastic Alexis pass found Ramsey with just the keeper to beat at the back post, but from close range he put it over the bar. The midfielder’s movement was great, the finish anything but.
Not to be outdone in the missing chances you should score game, just moments later Ighalo’s effort when clean through was even worse than Ramsey’s. The Welshman tried to make up for his miss by sending Bellerin through but his low cross was cleared. From the resulting corner Koscielny fired a shot just wide after a smart run to the near post.
Cech came to clear a Watford through ball that Mertesacker seemed to have under control, leading to claims of handball outside the from the Hornets, and just before the close of the first period Ramsey had another sight of goal – again shooting over having been set up by Mesut Ozil.
There were no changes on either side at the break, and Arsenal looked to ramp up the pressure with Alexis scampering and an Ozil effort blocked at the near post. Watford had some corners, Mertesacker got a yellow card, and the game was all a bit nothing with the Gunners struggling to match the performance of the last game against United.
The home side were claiming a penalty when Capoue went down in the box under a Coquelin challenge. Referee Mike Jones was having none of it though, and almost immediately Arsenal opened the scoring.
After the penalty claim, the reds broke upfield, into the Watford box, Ozil was fouled and should have been given a penalty but Alexis tucked the ball home from close range before the referee could even blow. 0-1. The goal was followed by the first change as Olivier Giroud came on for Theo Walcott.
Minutes later the lead was doubled after some patient build-up play by Arsenal. Ramsey saw a shot deflect towards the back post. It was there to be hit, but Ozil cut it back for Giroud who finished first time with his right foot into the top of the net. 0-2.
And in the 74th minute Arsenal made it 3-0. It began with a great Bellerin run, who played it to Ramsey in the box, he took a touch, the finish deflected in off a defender but it went in for his first of the season, and a goal he really needed. 0-3.
Alexis was denied another goal, or at least a penalty as he was taken out by keeper and defender, but that was his last action as he and Ozil made way for Oxlade-Chamberlain and Mikel Arteta in the 79th minute.
The game was essentially up that point, both sides knew it, and it flattened out into a fairly uneventful final 10 minutes.
It means another three points, and 11 goals in our last 3 Premier League games. Perhaps things are beginning to get motoring in the league this season.
Bit of a slow start but a good performance in the end. Good to see Giroud hungry for goals and Cech edging closer to the all-time Premier League clean sheet record. Now bring on ze Germans!
Giroud’s goal was exciting to watch. Exciting because I magining a premier league campaign where both Giroud and Walcott are scoring is…is…jizz worthy.
Never in doubt.
Cazorla and Bellerin were excellent today. Good win.
Same two players stood out for me – the constant threat that Bellerin offers going forward is fantastic, no wonder the others keep passing the ball to him. And Cazorla is just consistently sublime on the ball week in and week out. Won’t win you too many fantasy football points but he keeps this team ticking.
Bellerin had a great game going forward but I thought he had a bit of a rough start defensively against Ake. I suppose he’s never going to be a favourite for aerial challenges and physical duels. That pace though…. Watching defences try to deal with him reminds me of this http://youtu.be/5aCgSwmm5Ho
nyyyyyyyyyuuuummmm
Why the fuck was the ref so bent up on stopping the flow of the game at every instance?
He only let it flow against us. He didn’t stop it when Ramsey was laying on the ground after appearing to get an (unintentional) kick in the head. It’s the PMGO guidelines that say ‘screw Arsenal over at every opportunity’!
So, basically the thing is – if we have to win this PL, we need to understand that our defence is decent – not impenetrable, but will hold up for the most parts. So if we are to pick up maximum points, we’ll have to outscore the others – which this team is more than capable of doing… as long as it finishes.
That doesn’t seem to be an issue lately 🙂
I think our defence is more than decent. It is very good. 2nd half of last season was something like 19 games and 11 goals conceded only. It is when goals dry up and discipline wavers when we screw things up.
Our def stats is good on paper. But in match days, we sort of turn off very frequently.
The only defensive stat that ultimately matters is goals conceded, and 7 goals in 9 games makes us the best in the league.
Add to that, the record is against most of the form teams (3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th), and most of the other ‘big’ teams: United, Liverpool and (ha!) Chelsea. So it doesn’t look too bad.
“So if we are to pick up maximum points, we’ll have to outscore the others”
Mate…
Word is our defense is 2nd best in the league, definitely decent and then some.
Joint best with Spurs.
Word is, Cech is the best keeper in the league
Easy win. 3 goals, 3 points and a clean sheet again. A good weekend
Once Alexis scored we seemed to go up a couple of gears. Great Giroud goal
And getting Giroud and Ramsey on the scoresheet is exactly what we needed.
If Gabriel is fit, he absolutely has to start vs Bayern. If Mert starts costa will violate his dignity.
Ramsey slowed proceeding down but made up for it. Hopefully a scoring run follows.
Chamberlain worst cameo off bench, looks like the constant overlooking from Arsene is getting to him.
He’s being overlooked for a reason. Last player I want to see getting possession near our defense. Created one poor situation again because of his tendency to start running with the ball soon as he gets it.
Some people would thumb down your comment but it is the truth. I would be far more comfortable with a Gabriel & Koscielny partnership against Bayern than one with the BFG. At a point in the match today, the ball was right in front of him, yet Ighalo came from behind and got ahead of him, earning him a yellow card for his tackle. I love the BFG but he is too slow for those Bayern attackers.
In any case, all we want is a win on Tuesday.
Per calming presence will/might be needed against Bayern.
Tough to call..wouldn’t mind if Gabriel starts though.
Nonsense comment on Ramsey – he was buzzing all over the pitch and was the driving force in the first half.
Douglas Costa does appear to be lightning quick, so Gabriel might be a good option, but no need to be rude about Mertesacker.
Taking away nothing from his infuence on our attacking play but I felt at certain points in the match he could have released the ball abit earlier. He did things in the middle of the pitch that you do on a corner flag
Nice to be able to debate what pairing we have in the middle…….. and not worry which innit?
The Arsenal train is marching on. Good and mature performance all round; some years ago we would have rushed this and may be concede a goal on the break.
You could see from their body language that they knew the goals will come and it did.
I don’t care much about Bayern; I want the epl this term. I believe.
Cazorla MOTM! Brilliant! Hector a close second and everybody else just superb! Theo went missing again but good thing we have super Giroud! Happy for Ramsey he really worked his socks off. Nacho was so cool and let nothing pass him. Felt Ozil could have be more incisive but with Cazorla on the pitch no probs. Coquelin very mature performance. Per some shaky moments as well as Laurent but they grew into the game. We need a better replacement than Arteta as he is surely passed it and the Ox needs to get up to speed with the rest of… Read more »
No downvote from me, but Ozil more incisive? He had 2 assists out of 3 goals!
Well he did not pass that ball to Alexis as he was tackled and Bellerin assisted Ramsey from what i saw. and with we scoring 3 goals i would say that is one assist. But hey if you called not actually/intentionally passing a ball to a player especially if the defender most likely knocked it into the scorers path… ok.
We won anyway so i am happy!
Fair enough, he didn’t pass the ball to Sanchez, but he was through on goal and was fouled by the defender when he could quite easily have scored myself, so I’m counting it 🙂
Plus, the 2nd assist was for Giroud, not Ramsey. Don’t know if you were listening to Graeme Le Saux saying Monreal passed to Giroud (what he thinks the left-back would be doing on the right wing I’m not sure) or if you someone saw it differently yourself.
Yes i know is Giroud he assisted that is why i said Bellerin assisted Ramsey and therefore gave him one assist for Giroud.
It is all good though as we won and that is the main thing.
You’re so so unsurprisingly always criticising Özil, guy. It’s boring.
You know i think you have a point. I do not know why but i probably just feel we are not getting enough consistency for the 42 million…. like Alexis or Cazorla.
But i take your point and will never again talk bad of our German #11! If i ever, Blogs block me from making comments on this site.
COYG!!!!
Down vote from me because of your name 🙂
Ozil defending in our penalty area, two assists, and he who says Ozil didn’t pass the ball to Alexis in the “penalty” incident that he could have won still don’t appreciate the skill that won the “penalty” or led to Alexis goal.
All created by his excellent play
Not scared of bayern anymore as long as we have Alexis
Good intensity and game management. I disagree with the point about this not being as good as man United game. The Watford defensive pressure was greater, and they did enough going forward to keep us honest. Given that, arsenal did exactly what they had to. No gung-ho bs, played properly and finally took their chances.
Santi was making fun of Ramsey’s finish at the end, but he needed that goal.
United had Rooney on the field for us. That meant that we were effectively playing against ten men
Poor Debuchy, Bellerin is just so good today
Jenkison scored today too.
Then immediately gave away a penalty 🙁
So, one step forwards….
Theo had 12 touches in the 1st half 1 more than Petr Cech. Considering he didn’t play vs Lithuania his lacklustre display came as no shock at all. He is afterall consistent in patches but we love him and he is ours.
@Ferngooner no point with making sly digs at Theo then covering it up with a gratuitously patronising comments like “he is ours and we love him”. Give him a chance means not going from game to game and veering from Walcott being the second coming to him being a fast Emile Heskey, which he kinda was today. …let him grow into the role. I have zero doubts that if he stays fit he’ll get his 20 goals
I don’t think anyone doubts that Theo can get 20 goals a season, the question is when he has an off day does he bring enough to the team. Today was not a good day at the office for Theo, I seem to remember him being flagged offside three times in the first half. But the team didn’t itself didn’t click in the first half and we have to accept there may be days like this as he learns the role, and stay behind him because make no mistake, we are in a title race.
I have got all the time for Theo. one of his biggest supporters if am honest but the decline in performance between manu and watford was hard to miss. No spite all all just facts. But dont let facts…..?
If anyone in our team will score 20 in the league, its Alexis.
Theo and Giroud will get 15 at best.
In the end, Theo and Giroud are two different strikers that suit different ways to play. In the end, today was probably a Giroud day with them defending so deep and pressing in numbers.
It felt less about Theo playing badly as us to use the old phrase: bringing a knife to a gunfight.
Just ahead of the first goal I was starting to get that familiar feeling… we keep knocking on the door but can’t get in and then some opposition player takes a wild shot in the 90th minute and it deflects off one of our defender’s arses and into the net. But that extra bit of star quality from Alexis and a rejuvenated Ozil I think helps us in these situations, and hopefully means we are proper title contenders this season.
Ozil is just a class, if he stayed fit (I know Sanchez will be playing even if he is on wheelchair) then we will have a good chance of winning PL.
Great mature win!
Forgetting his performance on the pitch for a second… what a nice chap Ramsey is. Always comes across as thoughtful and intelligent in interviews. Future captain?
Possibly, but only if he can improve to be one of our better players again like a couple of years ago, IMO
Professional performance from the boys. Onward.
I’d like to give special praise to Aaron Ramsey today – I thought he was excellent. I thought he was our best player in the first half and got himself involved in a lot of what we did well in the second half.
He was constantly moving across the Watford backline, trying to find space, and he seems to have found a new strain of boundless energy. Plus, he put in a shift defensively as well (I thought the team in general put in great effort defensively today – even Theo, who was quiet otherwise today).
If the downvote was for the terrible sentence composition I thoroughly concur.
HURRAH HUZZAH
(nuff said)
Question for those who saw the game: was Theo’s defensive desire/intensity as high as vs Manure?
Watford didn’t really dally at the back like Man U did, they just fired it forward. So it’s not really one to make a straight comparison.
But he certainly was using his movement and making runs and space.
Özil is in such a great form! Most players would have tried a shot and just hope for the best on Giroud ‘s goal, but the vision Özil has for the right pass at a given time made that goal, which killed the game off completely. He will without a doubt be this seasons assist king of the BPL.
Building momentum for a title winning season.Up the gunners!
Great performance, wore Watford down, killed them off and never gave them much more than a sniff. If you’re being an ass you could say we started much slower than you’d like but that would be taking away from what was a committed and organised Watford.
Ozil again really good. That’s 6 assists in 9 PL games. And what about Bellerin, clearly the best RB in the league and he’s still getting better.
Great win. Title challenge in full flow. COYG!
Can we just start calling him Baellerin?
Hector Bellerin is brilliant
Am I the only one having problems posting comments and replies today?
Hector is different gravy
Brilliant gunners!!!!!
At first,I was in a wonderment,how could it been so starkly contrast to be in a beast mode fortnight ago and erratic today? But I was mustering courage that (great)Arsenal would win this match amidst sarcastic friends and rival fans especially man utd’s who were in a perpetual solemn prayer that arsenal lose or draw the match, having seen the insipid first half,their faint hope grew wings and began to “hit the conspiracy drum with elephantine rapidity”! Then the second half came and banished the sour memory of the first half into abyss: arsenal began to glide in the pool… Read more »
Ozil the master of assists is back at? it again, sanchez is unstoppable on this kind of form. happy for giroud and ramsey too. santi is turning in to xavi but a better dribbler.Good win. COYG.
Ozil, the master of assists is back at it again, sanchez is unstoppable on this kind of form. happy for giroud and ramsey too. santi is turning in to xavi but a better dribbler.Good win. COYG.
If it were at our end with Szcz, that challenge on Alexis would have been a sending off and PK, you just know it.
Then again, if it were Mike Dean, cPoue’s salesmanship would’ve left us two men down, a PK, and three pending retroactive punishments.
But that’s the last I’ll worry on it since Alexis got up- way to grind it out until becoming more dangerous in the second half, and a great 3 points!
Am I only one who keeps getting scrolled all the way to the bottom of the page to view Tide ads while reading higher up the page? Or is it a subliminal message for me to laundry?
Hmmm, let me look into that
Anyone bashing our first half performance is being simply direspectfull to watford. They were organized and physical especially thier captain. Bluntly speaking, mertesacker is just too slow for the high line that we play. He would cost us big time against better team. He is a good defender no doubt but i think this is the point where we partner gabriel and koscieny regularly with per as backup
And Özil just equalized Riquelme’s all times world assist record ?
Source? (reliable pls)
Watford were a little lucky to finish the match with eleven men. If Sanchez hadn’t immediately scored after Ozil was brought down, that would have been a penalty kick and a red card, and it should have been a penalty kick and a red card when Sanchez was cleaned out later on. That said – great work today against a disciplined and difficult opponent. Ozil put on another master class and it’s getting harder and harder to find the haters any more. Cazorla and Bellerin were sublime, and Sanchez was his usual brilliant self. I hope we can replicate our… Read more »
Is only when ARSENAL loose I see over 100 comments. Just don’t come to comment when ARSENAL lost. Plastic fans
To be fair, there’s usually more to talk about when we lose, but I do take your point that some people are just miserable cuntbags.