Be it temporary, but our 2-0 win over Bournemouth means that Arsenal are now on top of the league. And really, you could try to credit the defenders, the manager or anyone else as equally as you want to should you be that diplomatic, but there’s one guy who deserves way more credit than others.
Mesut Ozil. A guy who, if not for the heroics of Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez, would have been the runaway Player of the Season. A guy who was given stick for most of the beginning of his Arsenal career (and rightly so), but whose resurrection in the second half of last season went hugely unnoticed. Doesn’t matter now, everyone’s seeing it.
From start to finish, the guy was visibly brilliant. I get that it’s only Bournemouth, but Mesut has been doing it in nearly every game this Premier League season. He lit it up against Manchester City, got us results against innumerable teams and welcomed the added responsibility in the wake of Santi Cazorla and Alexis Sanchez being out.
Single-handedly, he has upped our threat in set pieces. Some of it was down to Bournemouth being a bit shit at corners, but it was staggering the number of chances Ozil created then. We could have had four goals from corners alone, had we been more clinical.
It’s not only set-pieces. In open play, Ozil was creating chance after chance, particularly in the second half. Had Theo Walcott not been terribly wasteful, Ozil could have had two or three more assists to his name. It would not be unreasonable to suggest that one goal and one assist was a criminal return for his contribution throughout the game.
And the goal. Oh, the goal. Directed and produced by him alone, it took a neat flick from Olivier Giroud to match the quality of Ozil’s runs and his one-twos. To nonchalantly nutmeg the keeper from that angle took craft no other player in England seems to have, which makes me all the more glad we spunked £42m for a one-in-a-billion player.
In all honesty, it’s beginning to seem only Ozil and Giroud are the two players in the attacking department we can bank on. With Alexis and Santi out, they’re our only remaining lieutenants. Joel Campbell is a hardworking player, but his finishing and end product is hugely unreliable. The same goes for Aaron Ramsey – who for one spectacular pass, kicks seven woeful others. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain had one of his better days, but doesn’t look there yet. Walcott’s amateurism in front of goal was evident.
But for Ozil, it’s hard to imagine where Arsenal might be. Even yesterday there were moments when it felt the game was on a knife-edge. After Ozil put it on a plate for Gabriel Paulista, things relaxed. The German is making the difference for us on all fronts and tilting the scales in our favour. He’s our X-factor, our Joker in the Pack and performing as good as how we were pretending he was, when he first joined.
Sure, there are others who deserve credit this Premier League season, as we approach the halfway mark. Giroud is one, for getting the goals when we needed them. Laurent Koscielny has been a rock at the back. Petr Cech has shown many of us how life is with a genuinely class goalkeeper, achieving a record 170 EPL clean sheets. Even Sanchez chipped in, even though his influence this season waned just a teeny-tiny bit.
However, none of their contributions could compare to Mesut’s. From being compatible to just about any trio in front of him, to delivering assist-after-assist when we needed them most, he’s a huge factor to our (albeit temporary) rise to the top. If we win the league there’ll be many to thank, but the first of them should be him.
Mesut Ozil, one of the greatest attacking midfielders ever to grace himself on this planet.
-Santi [Follow me on Twitter @ArsenalBlogz ]
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