Basel win shows the quality of the whole Arsenal squad

After Arsenal’s scintillating 5-1 win at West Ham on Saturday, Arsene Wenger bravely made six changes for last night’s match in Basel. Rob Holding made his Champions League debut, David Ospina, as usual, was back in goal and Kieran Gibbs replaced Monreal at left back. Aaron Ramsey returned to the fold, as did Alex Iwobi on the left and Lucas Perez was preferred to Olivier Giroud up front.

And it was Perez who stole the show with a hat-trick and of course he was the first player that Arsene Wenger talked about after the game. “The first two looked like quite easy goals, and were what we call tap-ins in England, but they were created by the team and you have to be there to finish. The third goal is a real striker’s goal. He scored more than 20 goals in Spain last season and he has shown why. He has an eye for goal and good movement in the box, which is why he scores.”

Wenger then spoke about how the changes of personell affected the game. “We had a good start, were quite mobile and technically very agile as well. The speed of our start surprised Basel and it was a convincing performance. Once again our squad system has worked well since the start of the season.”

So somehow, thanks to Ludogorets draw with PSG, we finished top of the Group, and Wenger was asked if there were any possible rivals that he would prefer to avoid in the knockout stages. “I don’t even know who we can get because I don’t know the results of the night, but as I told you before, we can still have a difficult draw.” Le Prof continued. “It will be difficult but we will have less guilt because we feel we’ve done the job by finishing first, and we play our second game at home. That’s what we wanted. After that, I said that there is not much difference in the draw, certainly not at the moment.”

Two away wins in four days is a great start to December, and we are sitting second in the Premier League. So how is Wenger feeling? “I cannot complain. We played some nice football and it’s a nice night for us. We came here and wanted to do the job, to play well and on top of that we were lucky with the Paris Saint-Germain result. It was a positive night.”

So we are now looking forward to next Saturday’s home game against Stoke, and as we are set to face Everton just four days later we will expect Wenger to do some more rotating. After last night’s game we can approach them with much more confidence in the quality of the whole squad.

Onwards and Upwards!

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13 Comments

  1. Big LOL for PSG fans now hahaha…
    No easy drawing or underestimate our next opponent. Lets learn from Monaco’s story.

  2. Backward karma. Last time I remember Iwobi scored goal too. Nice header to his own net. He’s a happy kid now. Congrats gunners!

  3. One question kept gong through my head last night.
    Would Giroud have scored all three of those goals?

    And another . How long did it take giroud to get a hat-trick for Arsenal?

    1. I’ve always loved g-rude but I think he better accept the bench role and be a super sub. He would have scored to maybe 1 and combed his beard with his hands twice for missing the next two.
      #nevertrusthim

    2. He would have scored the first 2 goals but not the last one (which was all about Perez’s pace). Did you see the pass Iwobi gave Giroud, which he didn’t even chase? Imagine if it was Perez, Sanchez or even Walcott at the end of that pass. For now, Giroud is best as an impact sub.

  4. Let’s not get carried away.
    Survive December,get a decent champions league opponent and offload some of our dead woods in January then we can celebrate.

    Where is Hafiz rahman and the other wenger out fans?
    Don’t wait till something catastrophic starts before u parade here. ?

  5. I still think Sanchez isn’t playing the no. 9 role properly. Many times there’s no body in the box. Sometimes there are 3 or 4 players ahead of him. He needs to ask for the ball less. With everyone fit, I think this will be our best front 3

    _______Welbeck_______
    Perez Sanchez

  6. Now that Perez is fit and in form, I think he should play as our top 9 henceforth. He is a natural top striker and poacher in the box which is what we need. Sanchez has done a great job so far in that role but he plays too deep in the midfield most time, leaving us with no one trying to get behind our opponents defense. We need a striker who would constantly be at the shoulders of defenders looking to get behind them in a flash when Ozil makes that killer pass. The combination of either Sanchez and Iwobi or Sanchez and Walcot should play on the wings, with Ozil behind them. I think this will make our attack force more potent.

  7. Did I just read that, no I couldn’t of, could have sworn someone said Alexis isn’t playing his striker role correctly. 13 goals seven assists, in 19 games. He got 17 goals 7 assists in total last season. Does a striker not live or die by his numbers, you’d rather he look orthodox rather than him having the freedom Henry was allotted. The dude is challenging in top striker chart, and the assist chart, and he edges a midfield battle in our favor with his tireless work ethic, next he might just do it all by replacing Santi while doing it all at the same time. I much prefer this Alexis to the one that has to cover Monreals back/front.

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