Alexis Is On A Different Planet To The Rest Of Arsenal

Match Review: Arsenal 3 Burnley 0 - Premier League 01.11.14

A three nil win looks comfortable and stress free on paper. But we had to work very hard for it against a Burnley side that, without wanting to be disrespectful, are nowhere near good enough for the Premier League. Despite this, there were periods in the game where we looked abject and devoid of creativity. Again, without wanting to offend our opponents from Saturday, three nil is par for the course against a side like Burnley.

Wenger named an unchanged team from the two nil win against Sunderland, meaning Arteta and Gibbs had recovered from minor injuries. I’m particularly pleased for Gibbs because the last thing he needs is a spell on the sidelines. His has been a career already hindered and frustrated by injuries and for me, he’s at least on a par with Baines, arguably better. If he can keep himself fit, the Arsenal left back spot could be his for the rest of his career.

Aside from Gibbs, the Arteta/Flamini midfield combination was let loose again, something I’d hoped we’d left behind. Perhaps Arsene had an eye on the midweek clash with Anderlecht, which could secure our progress from the group, but I was disappointed that we decided to go with two deep lying midfielders against Burnley. The away side have only managed to score five goals all season and only two of them have come away from home. You’d think we’d have plenty in defence to stop the league’s worst attack.

After a fairly uneventful opening ten minutes, things picked up and we started actually troubling the Burnley defence. Cazorla and Welbeck combined with a cushioned pass and a header before the former scuffed his shot weakly to the keeper. Welbeck then played a one-two with Alexis, before driving through the Burnley defence. He looked certain to score in the six yard box, but his shot across goal was blocked when he should have probably gone for the near post. It looked like it would be only a matter of time before we broke through and on twenty three minutes we should have had the perfect opportunity to do just that and Burnley should have been a man down.

George Boyd had been booked for pulling back Cazorla as he raced towards goal and then from a corner a few minutes later, he got away with a moment of madness. As the ball was swung in towards Mertesacker, Boyd timed his jump wrong and clear for all to see, he flung his arm up and deflected the ball with his hand. It wasn’t even inconspicuous, he clearly pulled his arm down and then thrust it back up to bat the ball away. Unfortunately, refereeing in the Premier League has descended to such a level that it is possible for a player to literally push the ball away with his hand in the area and for it to be missed by four officials, including a linesmen who had a completely unobstructed view of the incident. Had the officials possessed even a basic level of competency, Arsenal would have had a penalty kick and George Boyd would have received a second booking and been sent off. But no, in the so called ‘greatest league in the world’, the officiating has been getting worse and worse, to a point where blatant mistakes are being made on a weekly basis. Yet the FA continue to shield referees, they are untouchable, beyond punishment and it’s making the game we love a farce.

Despite the denial of a clear penalty, we continued to create chances, with Cazorla missing another opportunity after good work by Alexis and Chamberlain. Alexis seemed to be waging a personal war on the Burnley defence, testing keeper Tom Heaton with long range shots and also seeing a glorious one on one chance smothered by the Burnley stopper. Despite our domination, we couldn’t put the ball in the net. Burnley weren’t playing particularly well, we just seemed to lack the movement and final ball to actually put the ball in the net. The two holding midfielders weren’t providing much for us in terms of breaking Burnley down and overall, we seemed ponderous and indecisive when we went forward.

We lost our way completely in the second half. Despite Burnley’s lack of quality, our sloppy play actually started to yield a few openings for them, as we gave the ball away and lost our grip on the game. We were all over the place, but lucky Burnley were woeful with the ball. We had to wait until twenty minutes into the half until we had our next clear chance and what a chance it was. Alexis lifted a gorgeous ball over the top of the defence for the run of Calum Chambers, who managed to just about poke the ball past the keeper. One of the covering defenders just about nudged the ball away from goal, but straight into the path of Cazorla. It seemed a simple tap in and maybe Cazorla thought it was easy too, as his nonchalant finish was incredibly blocked by a lunging Burnley defender. Quite what’s wrong with Cazorla at the moment I don’t know, but his finishing has deserted him, as he could have had a hat trick in this game.

Luckily for us, we have one of the form players in the league to help us out. Off the back of two goals against Sunderland, Alexis Sanchez was once again the man to make his mark on the game. Calum Chambers whipped in an excellent cross and Alexis came storming in to simply destroy Trippier and power a header into the net. It was quite unbelievable that he even managed to win the header, given that he’s only a few inches taller than Cazorla. But such is his hunger and quality that he couldn’t be stopped and finally we had the goal we had been searching for.

Burnley had put up a reasonable resistance, but they knew realistically that the best they could possibly have hoped for was a scrappy 0-0. One goal became two very quickly, as a corner resulted in a goalmouth scramble and Calum Chambers of all people had the composure to poke the ball home from a few yards out. His first senior goal and his celebration showed what the moment meant as he was mobbed by his team mates. It capped another fine performance by the young man and he’s clearly integrated seamlessly into the squad.

The floodgates seemed to have opened and it was the perfect time to bring back a man who’d been missed hugely by the team since January. Theo Walcott made his first appearance in nearly ten months with ten minutes left as we continued to pepper Burnley’s goal. Heaton was having the game of his life in goal, as another substitute, Podolski, was found at the back post, but saw his powerful volley saved. He was found again not long after, this time from a wonderful lofted ball by Walcott, but this time his volley thundered onto the crossbar. We should have had a hatful of goals, but one man is hogging all the goals at the moment and he popped up to put the icing on the cake late on.

This time the attack came down the left, as Cazorla and Gibbs combined and the latter fizzed the ball across to Alexis in the middle. The Chilean had to dig the ball out from under his feet and then poked the ball underneath the beleaguered Heaton. We are truly privileged to have Alexis in our ranks and he’s now scored seven league goals in nine games. He was head and shoulders above every other player on Saturday, he worked himself into the ground and he has the ability to win games on his own.

It’s a little difficult to know what to take from this game, as it’s one we would have expected to win and have won. But the performance was worrying at times and we still don’t look confident and decisive. We’re hesitant and we have very little directness in our play, making us pretty easy to set up against. On the other hand though, we did create a ton of chances and on another day it would have been six or seven. I’m just not sure where we are at the moment, but I’m sure we’ll find out next weekend when we visit Swansea. The Welsh side are in decent form and are a classy outfit at home. They’ve caused us a lot of problems in the past and we’ll have to be at our best to beat them. We can’t afford to drop any more points at the moment, having only picked up four wins from our ten games and the Swans will not be in any mood to give up the three points lightly. Hopefully the confidence from the last twenty minutes on Saturday will lead to a big performance next Sunday.

Teams

Arsenal (4-4-2)
Szczesny, Chambers, Mertesacker, Monreal, Gibbs, Arteta (Ramsey 63’), Flamini, Cazorla, Chamberlain (Walcott 80’), Alexis, Welbeck (Podolski 80’)
Subs
Martinez, Bellerin, Rosicky, Ramsey, Sanogo, Podolski, Walcott

Burnley (4-5-1)
Heaton, Trippier, Duff, Shackell, Ward, Boyd (Y), Marney (Chalobah 80’), Jones, Arfield, Ings, Sordell (Jutkiewicz 69’)
Subs
Mee, Gilks, Wallace, Kightly, Jutkiewicz, Chalobah, Keane

Player Ratings

Szczesny - 7/10 - Sometimes had to catch the ball and throw it out, did as such
Chambers - 8/10 - Another great showing from the versatile youngster and a goal too
Mertesacker - 7/10 - Marshalled the defence well and gave the ref some Per fury too
Monreal - 8/10 - Had a brilliant game, pinging long balls and defending excellently
Gibbs - 7/10 - A solid game, capped with an assist for the third goal
Arteta - 7/10 - Distributed the ball well and is well suited to a 4-4-2
Flamini - 6/10 - Doesn’t work well with Arteta and made some basic errors
Cazorla - 6/10 - Played well, but was atrocious in front of goal
Chamberlain - 7/10 - A solid showing and caused their left back all sorts of problems
Alexis - 9/10 - On a different planet to the rest, he’s on fire at the moment
Welbeck - 7/10 - An indifferent day, but he will be deadly if we get him the right service
Subs
Ramsey - 6/10 - Had a shaky start and only upped his game once we scored
Walcott - 7/10 - Wasn’t on long, but made a great impression, he looked very sharp
Podolski - 7/10 - Could have had a brace but for the keeper and the bar

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