One-Man Team? What One-Man Team?! by Uche
Hello there folks. Still celebrating the Aston Villa assault? Of course you are you drunken Gunners! Boy what a win! Correct me if I am wrong but Arsenal have not scored five goals in a game in… like a century! We played that game like it was a training ground exercise and it could have end up being 9-0. And we did it all without Alexis Sanchez in the side.
That my friends is the subject of today’s musings. You see, the haters will always try to make our achievements look ridiculous. We win the FA Cup and they call it a Mickey Mouse cup. We sign Mesut Ozil and they say it was a waste of money. We sign Alexis Sanchez and they say we are now a one man team. And then we beat Man City in their own house like a boss and what did they say? Oh, that’s right, they are running out of excuses now. But someone might have said something like, ‘They only won because there was no Yaya Toure’. Interesting. If I recall correctly, Yaya Toure played for 60 minutes at Wembley in the Community Shield trophy match and we still whopped their butts 3-0 comfortably.
I am never in a hurry to declare that we have turned a corner. Even our Man City win left me speechless and stunned. But after the Aston Villa game, I had seen enough to make that proclamation. You can feel all the pieces clicking now. In Ospina, we have found a mature and safe pair of hands. That guy is our undisputed number one keeper. Hector Bellerin went through a baptism of fire at Stoke but he has since grown in leaps and bounds. And as for that midfield void that Patrick Viera left years ago, we couldn’t be bothered with the transfer window because General Francis the Coquelin is conquering everything in his path, kicking butt and taking names. Everything has clicked. Even young Bielick is wowing the boss in training, so an injury to Coquelin will not leave us exposed.
Alexis was absent because of a hamstring injury and we went on to score more goals than we have ever scored with him on the side. This is weird because we had a similar result away at Galatasaray. Alexis was rested and we were all nervous because we needed a win to keep our momentum going. And before we could all grab beers and settle on our favorite chairs, Podolski had banged in a screamer to announce that the Gunners were not in Turkey to take selfies….. or eat turkey… That match ended with a big score line of 4-1 without Sanchez even being on the bench. Maybe we should start benching Sanchez whenever we need a big win! Lol!
When everyone is fit, this Arsenal side can come up with six or eight different attacking combinations and still win their games comfortably. What a time we are having! We had no Welbeck, Wilshere, Sanchez nor The Ox. Podolski, Campbell and Sanogo are away on loans and we STILL put out that kind of performance.
So it is official. Alexis is the undisputed king of the ring – but we are no one man team. Special mention to Theo Walcott and Mesut Ozil, two incredible players that have been questioned for a while now. Walcott was largely anonymous in that game and was afraid of contact after being injured for almost a year. But he remains a very dangerous sniper and that is the difference between him and the Ox.
Ox is a better all-round footballer on current form, but with a poor goal and assist record. Walcott is that guy that gets you goals and assists, even when he is not playing well. Walcott has scored six goals in his last six games and often from the bench. In fact, Walcott is a good luck charm of some kind. We create more clear cut chances when he plays because he will make those runs that put him in goal scoring positions.
And as for Ozil, don’t even get me started. He has more talent in his little finger than most midfielders will ever dream of, and he is becoming a clinical goal scorer. I am glad he is back and raising his game more than ever.
Happy days Gunners. Unto the next one. Peace.
Uche Edochie
Lagos – Nigeria