As the season goes by, new things are on their road to be discovered. However, Arsenal’s situation in the UEFA Champions League this term has been nothing short of horrible. Two games played, two defeats against Dinamo Zagreb & Olympiacos, with the next fixtures being Bayern München home & away. It doesn’t look any promising, does it? But let’s focus on the good stuff that happened in the last month; mostly based in three topics: Mesut Özil’s form, Alexis Sánchez’s goalscoring recovery & Theo Walcott’s deployment in the centre-forward role.
The Arsenal’s chief creator and playmaker Mesut Özil has been doing his duty. When he came back from injury last season, the world champion was putting in excellent performances & creating multiple key passes for his teammates. One of the things that was running in the heads of many was: “why is he not getting the assists? He’s playing superbly, this is unfair.” Statistics aren’t the most relevant things for footballer, though. There are no such statistics that measure player’s influence and importance on the pitch, and Özil is a player that opens spaces and tries to make the best decision. This can’t be added to databases. Also players like Luka Modric or Andrés Iniesta don’t provide 20 assists per season, and are labelled as world-class midfielders. Others, like Kevin De Bruyne might not have their talent but they get great numbers. Nevertheless, Mesut Özil has been a player that has provided a high-number of assists combined with glorious performances throughout his career – not just a Match of the Day type of player with one brilliant moment during 90 minutes. This season, fortunately he’s been directly involved with assists – in September, he provided two assists in three Premier League games. Hopefully, Özil will reach close to his own-league record of 17 assists this campaign.
To get those assists, Özil owes half of his work to the strikers. A player can create millions of opportunities and if the players aren’t good enough to finish them off, the mission is incomplete. Alexis Sánchez & Theo Walcott have the task to do this. The Chilean scored 25 goals in his debut season for the Gunners, and the fans expect more wonderful moments from him. Alexis had a slow start, but the hat-trick ball he got at Leicester must have done nicely for his confidence – he then went on to score and assist in CL game against Olympiakos in the last game of September. To complete, Theo Walcott is getting better and better every game in his so wanted number nine position. The pacey English man suits Özil much better than Olivier Giroud, especially due to his mobility, impressive movement and nippy runs. He scored two goals in September – one thanks to a spectacular long-ball from Mesut Özil against Stoke in the Premier League.
SEPTEMBER MONTH REPORT:
Mesut Özil kicked off September by participating in two Germany national team games for the 2016 Euro qualifiers, of which they won both. Against Stoke, Özil created an incredible eight chances and got himself a splendorous 40-yard long-ball assist for Theo Walcott after a great Francis Coquelin sliding tackle. Unfortunately for Arsenal and co. they suffered consecutive defeats against Dinamo Zagreb and Chelsea, but found the winning touch against Leicester City away when Mesut Özil provided an assist with a great chip over the defence for Alexis Sánchez’s header. The German playmaker was involved in another three goals for Arsenal too – he started the play in Theo Walcott’s goal, made a smart one-touch pass to Hector Bellerín in Sánchez’s first goal of the afternoon & pre-assisted Olivier Giroud’s goal. Sadly, the month ended in a woeful performance from the team against Olympiacos in the Champions League.
