Best performance from him in a long time and fully justified his selection over Iwobi for the time being.
That’s his foot in the door, needs to build on it now. Looked more involved on the ball which was great to see, seeing as the guy clearly does have that ability tucked away somewhere.
First half absolute shambles and I was raging at how he was making awful decisions and destroying almost every attack he was involved in.
Second half though, that was a very mature performance. I liked that he focused on firstly keeping it simple, keeping the play ticking and making sure he was positionally in the right place. I mean, we’ve always known he has all the attributes if he applies himself intelligently and in that second half he certainly did. His movement got better and better as his confidence grew. Obviously the game opened up a lot too, but he certainly played his part. He’s always had a good shot on him once does find his feet and he took his goal very well.
For me he had a game of two completely different halves.
He’s always going to be wasteful and give away silly possession, which is why I don’t think he will ever be good enough for us, but today he played well. No point in slating someone who was probably our most significant forward player after Alexis. Good to see him lift his performance after that truly embarrassing miss as well.
1st half and 2nd half were total comparisons. He couldn’t thread anything through the an on-running Özil or Alexis. I think even Walcott had the gall to have a go at him for his shoddy touch.
2nd half was much more of an improvement and his goal helped kill the game off, a great goal too. I wonder if Wenger will look at that and think about using him there in the future? It’s the classic winger-switcheroo, cut in and ping it with your strong foot. It hinges more on the form of Iwobi and rightly so, however, we also have Pereth back to play there if we’re looking for a goal threat, the £17M Galician Suarez as he’s very famously known as.
Wenger has said before he thinks Ox can play there. Yesterday some of the skill he pulled off was legit and he made some fantastic passes. Im just basing my statements of Wenger really.
Someone else said this, but when the game opens up so much and Ox can literally sprint down the field with the ball without being challenged, he does tend to have a good game :cech:
Seriously though, he played one of his best games, even if the opposition basically capitulated. The goal he took was WC - let’s give him a break for a day.
I was gonna say that usually Ox scoring is a good barometer of the opposition–he’s only scored against Bulgarian or <premier league sides this season. But I’ve just seen the highlights and you gotta say the set-up for the chance Alexis missed in the first half was quality and there were a couple dribbles in there that were pretty nice.
I’m confused by some of the comments here, he didn’t play on the left? He played through the middle? If so Özil was on the left?