Falling in love with Arsenal again…
Date published: Saturday 29th October 2016 2:47
In every faltering relationship, there is a pattern: Everything they originally loved about you is now deeply, deeply irritating and indicative of your massively flawed personality. Your independence was once endearing but is now a bone of contention, while your sarcasm has plummeted from the highest to the lowest form of wit. And so it is with football. The strength you loved soon becomes the weakness you hate.
Everybody loves possession until it becomes sterile. Everybody loves passing football until it goes nowhere. Everybody loves aggression until the cards turn red. Everybody loves a red-hot striker until their team becomes over-reliant. Everybody loved Arsenal’s stunning one-touch passing football until we all starting screaming “stop trying to walk the ball into the bloody net”.
Where football differs from most relationships is that the situation can be rescued; the process can be reversed. This Arsenal side reminds us of everything we once loved – and then found massively, massively frustrating about them. We’re in the honeymoon period again.
There is the caveat of this Sunderland being one of the worst sides we have ever seen in the Premier League but that Arsenal opener…wow. Nine outfield players involved in a 22-pass move that culminated in a striker’s finish from a diminutive non-striker. It was so smooth, so incisive, so unchallenged that it looked like a training exercise and yet nobody claps at the end of a training exercise. I did, entirely surprising myself and the cat.
Wow – difficult to fit all the build-up to that Arsenal goal in one GIF!
Great patience in possession #AFC #SUNARShttps://t.co/lswzfW4UgC pic.twitter.com/FFhMsxjmVE
— Telegraph Football (@TeleFootball) October 29, 2016
There should have been more goals in an entirely lopsided first half that showcased the beauty of this Arsenal side, with their ridiculously offensive full-backs, the desire of Sanchez to hunt down the ball, the new-found confidence of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and the refreshing hunger of Mesut Ozil to move beyond his ‘striker’, who is more than happy to make room. It looks lovely and we like it when football looks lovely.
There was a blip of course but Arsenal’s reaction to that blip was ruthless, giving weight to Sir Alex Ferguson’s observations this week that these Gunners are more ‘sturdy’ than previous incarnations. Plan A had produced one sumptuous goal but a Plan B was required; Olivier Giroud came off the bench, Sanchez moved wide again and Sunderland were destroyed in seven uncompromising minutes.
We wrote that Arsenal quite possibly have the best squad in over a decade and it’s telling that the XI who started against Sunderland contained only five players who featured in over 2000 minutes of Premier League football last season. The Gunners have a raft of injuries and yet the replacements – Oxlade-Chamberlain, Kieran Gibbs, Mo Elneny – were all seamlessly excellent. Meanwhile, new signing Shkrodan Mustafi has added the kind of leadership and composure that makes us repeatedly check his date of birth and shake our heads in disbelief.
That Giroud could score 16 Premier League goals one season and be Plan B the next is a wonderful omen for everybody at Arsenal but the Frenchman himself. That he then came off the bench and scored twice is a wonderful omen for everybody bar none.
First they made pretty patterns and walked the ball into the net. And then – when required – they were quicker, more ruthless, more direct. After 20 years of marriage, it might be time for a renewal of vows because love has blossomed once again.
Sarah Winterburn
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