Arsenal: Alexis Sanchez And Mesut Ozil Headline Near Perfect Performance
Arsenal played a near perfect first half according to Arsene Wenger. The performance was headlined by the magnificent Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil.
In the best 45 minutes of football that I have seen Arsenal play since they, in very similar fashion, outclassed Manchester United last November with a verve of pace and precision that only Arsene Wenger sides can display, Chelsea conceded three times, didn’t record a shot on target and all but lost the game without even a glimmer of hope.
While the second half failed to live up to such high expectations – that is not a surprise as, with a comfortable three-goal lead, Arsenal were inclined to sit a little deeper and play a little more conservatively with the intention of having and holding – it was still a performance that has been heralded throughout the footballing media.
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After the match, when asked about the performance, Arsene Wenger himself was bowled over by his team, gushing in his praise and admiration for what he described as a near perfect performance:
“In the first half, we wanted to play this high pace, put them under pressure, and play at the very high collective connection with the speed of passing. It’s one of those moments as a manager when you think: ‘Today is a great day.’ In the first half it was nearly perfect. Overall, in the first half, we showed great quality. We played with style, with pace, with movement. That’s the kind of football we want to play. It’s one of the games where what we want to do worked very well. So yes, one of our best performances of recent years.”
The centrepiece of such success were, as it so often has been for Wenger’s sides in recent history, the duo Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil. In a display of attacking intelligence, clinical finishing and lethal finishing, Sanchez and Ozil were the two standout players from a team who put in a standout performance.
They have been the pillars of the Gunners’ recent success, and once again, their almost telepathic understanding of each other’s game, combined with the technical skill to execute, caused a poor Chelsea defence problems beyond their worst nightmares.
With Sanchez deployed as a false-nine, centre-halves Gary Cahill and David Luiz did not who to mark. At times, Ozil would be furthest forward, at others, Sanchez would be running the channels, only to drift wide moments later leaving two dumbfounded centre-backs marking nothing but fresh air, leaving acres of space for the genius of Ozil to exploit.
Arsenal’s first half performance was a masterclass in interchangeable attackers. Wenger has long prioritised highly versatile players. Not only do they provide cover for the inevitable injury crisis but they give an attack a fluidity and dynamism that is near on unstoppable when on song. For 45 minutes on Saturday, Arsenal were signing from the same hymn sheet, with Ozil and Sanchez, the headline acts.
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