GRANIT MAKES GUNS ROCK
EVERY KICK, EVERY GOAL, EVERY GAME New signing bosses midfield like Petit
Yp 9I<E;8E DZCFL>?C@E ARSENE WENGER reckons Arsenal have finally found a hard-asGranit midfield maestro in the same mould as Emmanuel Petit.
Three first-half goals from Santi Cazorla, Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil ensured this game was over before the break.
But it was the commanding yet cultured display from Arsenal’s new £25m summer signing Granit Xhaka which really caught the eye.
Golden
Wenger has long been blessed with an embarrassment of riches in midfield.
But aside from their Invincibles team, the criticism has been they have rarely had the right balance since the golden days of Patrick Vieira and Petit marshalling their midfield.
The pair were crucial in the Gunners’ Double-winning 1997-98 campaign – Wenger’s first trophies in England – yet in 2000 the partnership was broken up when Petit joined Barcelona.
The Gunners boss said: “Xhaka is a bit similar to Petit in the way he plays football. He likes to sit, give good long balls and be available with the centre-backs.
“We tried already in December last year to sign him for the January window.
“He has a good engine, good stature. He is good in the air, has a good balance in his game, a good short ball and a good long ball.”
The win ended Arsenal’s wait for a first victory of the season. The pressure had been on Wenger and his side too heading into the weekend after perfect starts for the Manchester clubs and Chelsea had already left them playing catch-up. So, a win was a must.
That combined with the imminent arrivals of £50m-plus duo Shkodran Mustafi from Valencia and Lucas Perez from Deportivo La Coruna will go some way to stopping fans’ frustrations boiling over any further – for now.
But four points from their opening three matches still amounts to a sloppy start.
The Gunners were fast out of the blocks, within nine minutes they led via Cazorla’s penalty after Sanchez had been fouled.
The Chile ace then got in on the act to convert Theo Walcott’s cross GRANIT XHAKA Looks a class act NORDIN AMRABAT Clumsy foul on Sanchez before turning provider for Ozil, who headed in on his first start of the campaign.
A 57th-minute debut goal from Hornets substitute Roberto Pereyra proved a consolation for Walter Mazzarri’s side, whose wait for a win goes on.
Watford debutant Younes Kaboul leapt to the defence of the boss, who is still getting to grips with learning English.
He said: “He gets his ideas across. It’s clear straight away what he wants. He can be very tough.”