Özil The Highlight In A Miserable November

Match Review: Norwich City 1 Arsenal 1 - Premier League 29.11.15

More dropped points, more injuries and another frustrating result. Arsenal rounded off a miserable November with another poor result, this time at struggling Norwich. Statistically our worst month for points under Arsene Wenger, we stayed true to form and picked up just two from nine in games we should have expected maximum points from. Not only that, but the injury situation has gone from bad to worse, with a potential long term injury to Alexis and bad knocks to Cazorla and Koscielny.

Aaron Ramsey returned to the starting line-up for the first time since Bayern at home, replacing Joel Campbell on the right. The rest of the team remained unchanged from the win over Zagreb and as in that game, we dominated the possession. Unfortunately we lost Koscielny before even ten minutes had been played, as he seemed to have a problem with his hip. According to reports though, it seems that the injury isn’t serious and we could even see Koscielny against Sunderland.

Despite our domination of the ball, chances were at a premium, after nearly half an hour, we had only tested the Keeper once, with Ruddy palming away Alexis’ shot from inside the area. However, Ruddy has a habit of dropping clangers at the moment and although he wasn’t completely at fault, our opening the scoring was largely down to him. Ruddy’s attempted clearance was fizzed into O’Neil in his own half, but the midfielder’s touch allowed Alexis to nip in. Alexis quickly slipped a ball through for Özil, who watched Ruddy come running out and cooly clipped the ball over him. Our German playmaker is having an unbelievable season and showing everyone why £42mil was indeed a bargain.

Özil is only one man though and his efforts alone will not carry us if we continue to struggle with scoring goals and keeping them out at the other end. Norwich had one decent spell of pressure and they pegged us back just before half time. Gabriel, Koscielny’s replacement, was the guilty party as he failed to stay tight to Grabban and then allowed the striker to roll him and slot past Cech. Allowing Grabban, a very average striker with even worse facial hair, to score against us is frankly embarrassing. Conceding these stupid goals is costing us points and with a huge game against City coming up soon, we can’t afford to be falling very far behind them.

We almost conceded again before the half as Bellerin fell asleep and let Hoolahan get on the end of Wisdom’s cross. Norwich spurned a few great chances in the second half too and Cech had to make a stunning save when Gabriel nearly deflected the ball into his own net. Our attack laboured and looked incredibly slow, especially after Alexis went down clutching his hamstring and limped off. He looked in a lot of discomfort and from the way he was moving it looks as if this could be a question of months, not weeks for his return. Alexis is only behind Özil in terms of players we’d least want to lose and we will miss him hugely, especially over the packed Christmas period.

I don’t believe we created anything clear cut before the end of the game and that is a problem. Norwich are an ok side, but they are side we should be beating every day of the week. They are in a relegation battle so losing points to them is immensely frustrating and means we will have pick up points in more difficult places. Premier League titles are built on being able to win at West Brom and Norwich, even if you’re not playing that well and at the moment we simply aren’t getting the job done.

Teams

Norwich City (4-5-1)

Ruddy, Wisdom, R Bennett, Bassong, Olsson, O’Neil (Y), Dorrans, Howson (Redmond 71’), Hoolahan (Odjidja-Ofoe 85’), Brady, Grabban (Jerome 85’)

Subs

Martin, Mbokani, Jerome, Rudd, Mulumbu, Redmond, Odjidja-Ofoe

Arsenal (4-2-3-1)

Cech, Bellerín, Mertesacker, Koscielny (Gabriel 11’), Monreal, Flamini, Cazorla (Y), Ramsey (Oxlade-Chamberlain 72’), Özil, Sánchez (Campbell 60’), Giroud

Subs

Debuchy, Gabriel, Ospina, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Chambers, Campbell, Reine Adelaide

Player Ratings

Cech - 7/10 - Had to be alert and made one stunning save in particular

Bellerin - 6/10 - Not at his most effective going forwards or backwards

Mertesacker - 7/10 - Looked pretty solid, did nothing much wrong

Koscielny - N/A - His hips don’t lie…

Monreal - 7/10 - Again, solid and dependable

Flamini - 7/10 - So far so good in his return to the team, hopefully he can keep it up

Cazorla - 6/10 - Showed flashes of talent but was suffering from a knee injury

Ramsey - 6/10 - Could be returning to the middle with Cazorla injured

Özil - 8/10 - Such a wonderful player, a privilege to watch

Alexis - 7/10 - Busy and dangerous, but attempted one sprint too many

Giroud - 5/10 - Anonymous again, games seem to be just passing him by at the moment

Subs

Gabriel - 5/10 - Made a terrible mistake for their goal, but did recover a bit after

Campbell - 6/10 - Not awful but not very effective either

Chamberlain - 6/10 - Got down the flanks and made a couple of decent crosses

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