Much like Arsenal’s annual top-four finishes, there is an element of repetition to the match-day script at the Emirates Stadium as they marvel at a marquee signing after a moment of class.
The theme stayed the same yesterday, although the protagonist changed.
Alexis Sanchez has delivered stellar display after stunning performance this season, but any void left by his absence yesterday was filled by Mesut Ozil.
Sanchez can seem a surging, scoring indictment of Ozil, a superstar signing who lives up to his billing on a weekly basis, but if the German has to fight for his place in the team, he has entered a battle with a typical focus on delicacy, not physicality.
It is perhaps typical of Ozil that, even though he scored, the defining image of a 5-0 win was not a finish, but an assist, a triumph of technique and imagination, a volley that turned Per Mertesacker's clearance into a constructive contribution, sprung Aston Villa's admittedly faulty offside trap, and sent Olivier Giroud away to break the deadlock.
It was an instant of impudent brilliance, a touch to advertise Ozil’s vision.
The challenge for the artists is always to ally virtuosity with productivity, something Sanchez has managed – less frequently Ozil – in his Arsenal career.
This was an exception, perhaps a recognition, that even the most gifted players are judged by their statistics.
Ozil’s goal was his second in successive Sundays, following a strike at Brighton in the FA Cup, and came on his first league start for almost four months.
The sense is that he has returned with a point to prove, albeit in his inimitable, undemonstrative fashion.
The most distinguished spectators included the two sleekest of the Invincibles, men who married style and substance with idiosyncratic brilliance.
Thierry Henry and Robert Pires are proof that Arsene Wenger has had stronger sides, replete with attacking talents who would have commanded a place in any team in England, if not the world, but he has never had such an abundance of attacking options.
Injuries serve to postpone difficult decisions and Ozil was operating in the injured Sanchez’s spot on the left wing.
Santi Cazorla continued as the No 10 and extended his rich vein of form. The Spaniard has been the catalyst for the winter renaissance and, if there was an element of fortune in the way Brad Guzan allowed his thumped penalty to slip through his hands, it was significant Cazorla supplied the passes for Theo Walcott and Hector Bellerin to score.
The 19-year-old right-back finished with the assurance of a master, not a teenager scoring his first senior goal, even if the pressure was alleviated by the scoreline.
Bellerin’s precocity is suggesting that Wenger’s faith in youth has been justified again.
For much of this season, it seemed a mistake to loan Carl Jenkinson to West Ham, where he has been outstanding. Yet had the Englishman stayed, he might have been a roadblock to Bellerin’s progress.
With Mathieu Debuchy injured, he ought to have a spell in the side. It is harder to say if Ozil’s excellence will offer him such a guarantee.
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