OZIL CELEBRATES HIS BIRTHDAY WITH SUPER WINNER FOR ARSENAL
Gunners’ king of assists turns marksman in tense win over Bradley’s boys
IN TRAINING, Arsene Wenger said after the match, Mesut Ozil scores when he wants. Arsenal’s goalkeepers insist he is almost impossible to defend against. Well, yesterday, the king of the assists brought his killer finishing in to the open with a strike of sublime ferocity that took Arsenal level on points at the top of the Premier League.
It was Ozil’s birthday yesterday. Thankfully, he is only 28. Nobody wants players like him to get old. It is one of the many privileges of English football to be able to see him play every week. His goal against Swansea, Arsenal’s third, won the match and was as sweet a hit as you are likely to see. It was his present to Arsenal’s fans.
Amid all the angst that has come with being a Gunner these last 10 years, all the fretting about the failure to win the league and the worries that Wenger is no longer the force he was, there have always been rich compensations. Ozil is one. The Premier League trophy may not have been seen here for a while but when you get to watch a left-foot like that, it takes away some of the pain.
Only some, of course. This was Arsenal’s sixth win in seven games and they are unbeaten since the opening weekend but they still managed to look desperately vulnerable. They have become a club with a gift for making things fraught and this win against a Swansea team they pushed into the bottom three was no different.
‘It should have been a comfortable afternoon but it ended in an uncomfortable way,’ said Wenger. ‘We just got over the line. We played some fantastic football but at 2-0 up, we lost our focus. We could have scored a fourth but we could have conceded, too.’
Partly, that was because after they had twice established a two-goal cushion, midfielder Granit Xhaka was sent off midway through the second half for a foul on Swansea’s flying winger Modou Barrow who had tormented the Arsenal defence all afternoon.
Xhaka’s tackle was not dangerous, nor did it prevent a scoring opportunity. But it was desperately cynical and even though it should only have been a yellow, there was little sympathy for him when he was shown a straight red. Wenger said he would not appeal. ‘I thought it was dark yellow,’ Wenger said. ‘The referee thought light red.’
Maybe Wenger feels he can afford to be relaxed about Xhaka’s impending suspension. Arsenal may have been clinging on at the end but there is still much to be optimistic about. They have options all over the pitch now, a fact underlined by two more goals from in-form Theo Walcott.
Walcott may have struggled to fire for England in Slovenia last week but he was hardly alone in that and yesterday he was too hot for Swansea to handle. He scored Arsenal’s opening two goals and should have had two more in the last five minutes. One of those chances hit the inside of a post, the other skimmed the crossbar. It is a fine sight to see him in full flow like this.
Defeat meant this is Swansea’s worst start to a Premier League season but there was plenty for their new manager, Bob Bradley, to be optimistic about. Barrow was the best player on the pitch. ‘We are just scratching the surface of his talent at the moment,’ Bradley said. Barrow might even have scored an equaliser late on as his side laid siege to the Arsenal goal.
In the early stages, its anarchic close seemed a world way but Arsenal broke the deadlock 19 minutes before half-time. Alexis Sanchez looped a ball out to the right side of the box to Hector Bellerin and he leapt to head the ball across goal, where Walcott had made a run to the near post.
Swansea appeared to have thwarted the danger when Jordi Amat got ahead of Walcott but the England forward muscled him out of the way and squeezed his shot past Lukasz Fabianski from close range. It was a poor goal for Swansea to concede. Both Amat and Fabianski should have done better.
The goal released Arsenal. Sanchez nearly scored a minute later with a lob that left Fabianski stranded but sailed just wide. Bellerin went close when he ran on to an Ozil pass and he lifted the ball over Fabianski but the keeper deflected it just wide.
Inevitably, Arsenal went further ahead courtesy of more abject defending. Federico Fernandez failed to clear a corner, the ball bounced off Gylfi Sigurdsson’s heel and when it fell to Walcott, he swiv- elled and swept it past Fabianski. Just when it looked as if Arsenal were going to sweep Swansea aside, they grew complacent. Passing the ball around at the back, Xhaka tried to beat Sigurdsson on the edge of the box and was promptly dispossessed. Sigurdsson advanced a couple of yards and curled a sweet left-foot shot beyond Petr Cech.
On the brink of the interval, Swansea almost forced their way back to level terms. Amat, seeking redemption for his errors, raced on to an inswinging free-kick and headed the ball down and goalwards. But Amat could not direct the ball close enough to the corner and Cech beat it away.
Arsenal re-established their superiority after the break and Walcott should have sealed his hat-trick when Ozil headed the ball across goal to him and he volleyed too close to Fabianski.
A couple of minutes later, Ozil took a break from assists and scored himself. Sanchez curled a cross in from the right, Ozil took care to stay onside, waited for the ball to drop and then crashed a left-foot volley past Fabianski from close range.
Arsenal seemed determined not to make it simple, though. A few minutes later, appalling defending allowed Swansea back. Barrow, who had been a constant threat with his pace seemed to have run down a blind alley when he was marshalled to the edge of the box. But when he slid the ball across goal, substitute Borja Baston was in yards of space and drove his shot past Cech.
Things got worse for Arsenal. Barrow turned away from Xhaka on the halfway line and set off down the touchline. Xhaka lunged at him from behind and brought him down. Referee Jon Moss showed him a straight red card.
The atmosphere inside the Emirates grew fraught. Wenger likened the negativity of some supporters to a virus last week and suddenly, Arsenal looked sick.
Swansea were emboldened. With quarter of an hour to go, they missed a gilt-edged chance to equalise. Barrow ran on to a floated cross from the left and found himself unmarked six yards out. With the goal gaping, he could only direct his free header straight at Cech. On the sideline, Bradley held his head in his hands.
He had reason to do it again a few minutes later. Barrow, who had tormented Nacho Monreal, beat him on the outside again and played a perfect cross into the Sigurdsson. Sigurdsson met it without breaking his stride 12 yards out but lifted his shot over the crossbar.
As Swansea pressed more and more, they left gaps at the back and Walcott should have put the game out of reach five minutes from time when he was clean through. His shot beat Fabianski’s dive but cannoned back off a post and Swansea resumed their siege.
But they could not force an equaliser and Walcott twice missed chances to put the game out of reach. Arsenal’s fans, both infected and virus-free, suffered to the end.