As is so often the case in football, a few good performances quickly silences the critics. The media's tune has quickly shifted from questioning Wenger's ability to take the club beyond aiming for fourth place, to suggesting that Coquelin is the player to complete our team, providing all that we were missing against the big teams, while the return of Özil and Walcott means that we have too much attacking talent for just one team.
Today was the perfect opportunity for us to slip up again; so often we feel we have improved, having dug deep in an important game, only to go and underestimate the team we face next and be brought back down to Earth with a bump. Instead, however, we performed with a confidence and composure to suggest that we are improving and can tentatively look forward to a positive end to the season.
Arsenal line-up (4-1-4-1): Ospina; Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal; Coquelin; Walcott, Ramsey, Cazorla, Özil; Giroud
Thoughts on the game:
Aston Villa started the game aggressively trying to close us down in midfield, but we coped with this really well. The main reason for our downfall in the second half of last season was teams pressing us in midfield and pushing up their defence because, without Ramsey, Walcott and Özil, we had no outlets to break beyond the opposition defence. This season, with Alexis, we have been less susceptible to this tactic and, while Alexis was absent today, some of his passion lived on in Ramsey, Giroud, Cazorla and Coquelin, who all matched Villa's aggression and determination in a tight midfield. With the return of Özil's vision and Walcott's pace, we were constantly able to break free of Villa's defence, causing them all sorts of problems and leading to our first goal, from Giroud.
Özil's one-touch flick on to Giroud, to provide the assist, demonstrated exactly what he offers the team that no-one else can. While Cazorla is currently seeing a lot of the ball, driving forward and dribbling effectively, no-one but Özil can do so much damage with so few touches. This was also evident in Özil's goal, where he took just one touch to move the ball away from the defender before placing the ball past the goalkeeper with his second. The timing of his run was immaculate, and demonstrated that he does have pace and desire, it just often goes unnoticed as he is so economical in when he applies it. With Özil there are no wasted touches of the ball, and there is no wasted effort.
Making Özil's job easier was Walcott, who was constantly pushing back defenders with his running off the ball, opening up space for Özil and Giroud, in particular. Yes, he still lacked some composure when through on goal, wasting at least a couple of chances, but his goal was taken very well indeed. If he can become more clinical when through on goal then he will become very dangerous indeed. It was nice that both Walcott and Özil were able to cut inside and attack through the middle when they wanted to, and we are starting to see that Özil can be effective when positioned on the left, as well as in his favoured central role.
Coquelin put in another convincing performance, combining tenacity, athleticism, positioning and tackling ability to effectively shield our defence. He is helped out by the work rate and chasing of Ramsey and Cazorla ahead of him, but he makes it his business to defend, so is rarely caught out by being too high up the pitch. I was impressed by his ability to read the game today, carefully choosing the right moments to sprint forward to cut out a pass or make a tackle to regain possession, and then quickly passing it to a teammate to start an attack.
Our defence were well protected today, allowing them all to put it quietly convincing performances. Ospina strengthened his claim to be our first choice keeper with some commanding claims from crosses, and he made a couple of very good saves towards the end of each half. Bellerin is also staking his claim for a first team place, putting in some good tackles and quickly breaking forward to put in decent crosses. Great to see him score his first goal for the senior team too.
So, overall, this was a really pleasing performance from the whole team. We were working hard for each other which, in turn, made everyone's job easier and allowed us to keep an important clean sheet. We scored five great team goals, with five different names on the scoresheet. While Ramsey will have been disappointed not to be one of those names, he is putting in a lot of effort and his performances are gaining in composure and confidence. The goals will come.
Finally, I think it's worth mentioning some of the players who weren't playing today: Alexis, Wilshere, Welbeck, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Arteta, Debuchy, Gibbs, Gabriel, Chambers, Szczesny. For a start, this is just one player short of a very strong team. Most of these absent players are arguably first choice, yet it's very difficult to say who would have been left out of today's team to accommodate them. Things are starting to look up!
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