In a week dominated by transfer rumours, it was nice to get back to winning ways on the pitch, and what a start we had against Crystal Palace, off to an absolute flyer.
We went 4-0 up in just over 20 minutes, thanks to goals from Monreal, Iwobi, Koscielny and Lacazette making it 4-0 with just 22 minutes on the famous Arsenal clock. Luka Milovojevic, the Serbian who missed the last minute penalty against Man City netting the late consolation for Palace, his shot leaving Cech no chance. You can find an introduction to online casinos over at Eurogambler.
We finally had some players back this weekend, Nacho Monreal and Laurent Koscielny back in at the back, while Ozil returned from his winter break / knee injury and all three looked fresh and sharper than usual, so the rest clearly did them good. Monreal opened the scoring after just four minutes, heading home from a Granit Xhaka corner (have we finally found someone who can take a corner?!). Monreal then turned provider, cutting the ball back from the byeline for the under fire Alex Iwobi to make it two. Another Xhaka corner (wait, what?) created the third goal on 13 minutes, Monreal again assisting before Koscielny poked the ball home. The fourth was a thing of beauty, an amazing passing move culminating in an exquisite Ozil backheel into Lacazette’s path who fired low and hard for 4-0.
The impressive Monreal then decided his work was done and limped off after providing a goal and an assist, but the substitution looked like a precautionary measure, so more news on that as we get it.
No Premier League game this weekend as it’s the so called ‘FA Cup’ and we play Swansea away next Tuesday. Spurs dropped points this weekend, drawing 1-1 at Southampton, sadly everyone else won while Liverpool play Swansea away tonight. Arsenal (having a nightmare of a season) are three points behind Spurs (having a great season) but the North London underachievers play Man United, Liverpool and Arsenal in their next 3 games, so hopefully things are about to change. We play Swansea away and Everton at home, and while our form remains up and down, you’d expect all 6 points from those two games, unless Theo Walcott has his best game at The Emirates for years and puts us to the sword!
As I say no more league games until next Tuesday, but later this week we take on Chelsea again in the Caraboa Cup after the away leg finished 0-0. This finely poised tie takes place on Wednesday (24th January) and kicks off a bit later than usual with an 8pm start. It remains to be seen if and when we can get our two new proposed players signed this week but Henrikh Mkhitaryan is cup tied anyway. It’s a long shot but Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang could make his debut if we can get everything done over the next day or two.