The Sports Lowdown For All Your News and OpinionsArsenal beat Watford 3-0 to continue their fine form in the Premier League. The score line is not a fair representation of Watford’s performance, however Arsenal’s attacking prowess eventually broke down Watford’s defensive unit.
The game started off in the way everyone expected it to. Arsenal dominated possession for the first ten minutes, but failed to add the finishing touch to any of their attacks. Watford grew into the game as time passed and were causing Per Mertesacker problems with the pace of Ighalo, and Troy Deeney’s hold up play was proving to be effective. Watford were also proving to be difficult to break down. Walcott and Ramsey having the best of Arsenal’s first half chances, but failing to convert.
The teams went into half time level, both sides feeling as though they had the opportunities to take the lead.
The start of the second half was very similar to the first, end to end football with Arsenal dominating the majority of the possession. The game really started to heat up in the 60th minute when Watford appealed for a penalty after Coquelin and Capoue collided. These appeals were ignored by the referee which gave the Gunners the perfect opportunity to take advantage of Watford’s loss in concentration. Mesut Ozil received the ball in the box who seemed to have been fouled, however the ball fell kindly to the deadly Alexis Sanchez who slotted home his sixth goal of the season in the league.
Arsenal then introduced Olivier Giroud to the game who came on for Theo Walcott, and the Frenchman didn’t waste any time in making an impact. Mesut Ozil cut the ball back to Arsenal’s number 12 who placed the ball into the roof of the net to give the Gunners a 2-0 lead in the 68th minute.
To add insult to injury, Arsenal added a third goal thanks to Aaron Ramsey. After a frustrating first half his deflected shot wrong footed the goalkeeper to round off a truly fantastic game.
All the plaudits will go to Arsenal’s attackers, however some credit has to be given to Watford. Their hunger and desire to close down the Arsenal players in the first half was phenomenal, and their all round defensive display in the first hour of the game was impressive. Nonetheless, Arsenal did what was expected of them and won the game comfortably in the end.
Arsenal will now look ahead to their Champions League fixture at home to Bayern Munich. The Germans have been scoring goals for fun in recent games with Polish striker Robert Lewandowski spearheading their attack.
Arsenal have had an awful start to their Champions League campaign and must beat Bayern Munich at least once to stand any chance of making it past the group stages. If Arsenal play like they did against Manchester United then there is a chance they could pull off a shock result, but what is the likelihood of this actually happening?
