OZIL TAKES HEAT OFF WENGER
German ends grim away run to reward manager’s gamble
HE only came on as a late substitute, but by the end the travelling Arsenal fans were singing Hector Bellerin’s name.
What a contrast for the young Spanish defender, who was vilified by many of the same supporters who saw their team cave in so lamely at Crystal Palace.
Bellerin was on the field for only six minutes here, and didn’t do that much to turn favour his way. The difference this time was merely that Arsenal were winning. In football, it sometimes doesn’t take much to lift the mood.
Whether the Arsenal fans will still be singing over the next few weeks remains to be seen. They have Manchester City at Wembley in an FA Cup semi-final on Sunday. That will be a tough test.
But this was an improvement, that’s for sure. After a run of four away defeats in the Premier League, Arsenal finally managed to fall the right side of the line in a very tight game.
It was tough on Middlesbrough. They competed well, and for a 20-minute spell at the start of the second half they played very well too. Had it not been for Petr Cech in the Arsenal goal, the home team could have won.
But good teams are supposed to prevail in close games. That is often what makes the difference between, say, a top-four finish and a Europa League spot. It has been one of Arsenal’s many failings during this dismal season. This is a team who have seldom had the knack of toughing it out, but they did here.
The winning goal came from Mesut Ozil with 19 minutes left and it was a good one. The German had not played particularly well. But he took his goal well, volleying in calmly at the near post after Aaron Ramsey had chested down an Alexis Sanchez cross in to his path.
It was a really bad goal for Middlesbrough to concede and was not typical of how they had played. On the whole Steve Agnew’s team had been organised and high on concentration. But on this occasion substitute Adama Traore gave the ball away cheaply and then the defenders failed to pick up either of the two Arsenal players in the penalty area.
Arsenal are not generally clinical but they were here. Only minutes earlier Cech had made a really big save and it was to Wenger’s players’ credit they made sure they made the most of it.
This period — the first 20 minutes of the second half — was when the game was settled. Arsenal had led at the end of a flat first half thanks to a lovely free- kick from Sanchez. But Middlesbrough found energy, confidence and, more importantly, some quality to almost turn the thing round in the second period.
Certainly the equaliser was a lovely goal. Stewart Downing’s cross from the right was perfect and found Alvaro Negredo arriving on the shoulder of Laurent Koscielny with real purpose.
The Spaniard could have dived forward to meet the cross with his head but had the confidence to attack it on the volley with his right foot. It turned out to be the right choice and Cech had no chance from six yards.
Almost immediately Downing sent a half-volley over the bar after a cross from George Friend landed at his feet and then came the moment that maybe turned the game.
With the Riverside alive and ready to believe, a free-kick from Downing was headed back across goal by Friend in the 61st minute and Daniel Ayala seemed certain to score as he nodded the ball towards goal from point-blank range. The Middlesbrough defender did nothing wrong but Cech’s anticipation and positioning was perfect and he was able to repel the header with two hands.
After the relatively mundane business of the opening half, this was lively stuff. Arsenal rode the storm and broke to clinch it and it is only right that Wenger’s role in this is recognised.
Such were the depths plumbed during the 3-0 defeat at Palace that Wenger felt compelled to do something drastic. It is not like him but he did it anyway. He made a raft of changes and left out players such as his captain at Selhurst Park, Theo Walcott.
He also used a three-man defence and selected 21- year- old Rob Holding as part of it. Holding had not played in the Premier League since last August and some experts suggested Arsenal had not played this system for two decades. So these were big calls by Wenger and it is perhaps just as well, for his sake, that they worked out.
His team were marginally superior in the first half but not by much. Sanchez’s free-kick came just before half-time and was a beauty. Middlesbrough possibly had too many men in the wall and that may have left goalkeeper Brad Guzan unsighted. But the whip and disguise on Sanchez’s shot were sublime. If the Chilean does leave this summer, he will be very difficult to replace.
Middlesbrough will in all likelihood face more fundamental problems as they look set for relegation. That is a shame as this is a fine club that has suffered on the back of a failure to score enough goals. It was tough on them that they ran in to Arsenal on a night when, belatedly, they managed to buck damaging recent trends.