Premier League Review - Ozil keeps Arsenal in charge

Arsenal recover after traditional panic under pressure

The game against Bournemouth wasn’t anything special for Arsenal. Despite being Arsenal, even neutral observers assumed they would be able to win, and so they did. That they did with an inspirational Mesut Ozil, and a fancy flick from Olivier Giroud, more or less left Arsenal as most have come to expect.

Ozil is now a more mature player. He was never a fool in front of goal, or around to it, but he was more capable of pulling off brilliance a couple of stages before a shot was taken, rather than taking the shot himself or setting up another player for it. Now, he is at the heart of Arsenal’s play, regardless of whether the excellent - if tiring - Alexis Sanchez is present in the team.

He isn’t perfect, though. He, along with the rest of the side, took Boxing Day as a rest day, allowing a desperate and hard-running Southampton side to obliterate them with ease. As capable as they were that day, Arsenal gave Southampton a victory with their defensive incompetence, and Ozil was unable to drag his side into fighting back. It was the bad old Ozil. Fortunately for Arsenal, that happens ever less often, and that’s reflected in their current position at the top of the table.

Much is said about Arsenal’s success in calendar years. It is essentially meaningless, as having the most of anything in a calendar year means nowhere near as much as having a league or European trophy. It has been too long for Arsenal since they have had either. But Arsenal are now likely to change that, though it is by no means guaranteed. They have obviously improved as the season has progressed, but they are still susceptible to injuries, and demonstrably still vulnerable to daft defeats. Look around, though, and once you realise the competition is even slacker than Arsenal are, and it has to be said that Arsenal, by default as much as their own hard work, are currently in charge of the title race.

Chelsea and Manchester United lower expectations yet further

The same cannot be said for Chelsea, or their opponents yesterday, Manchester United. As bad as United have looked - and that is very bad. Abominably bad. Witlessly bad - they are not quite as far off competence as Chelsea are.

The defence of Chelsea was a shower of effluence. Branislav Ivanovic might be called into attack more than Cesar Azpilicueta, leaving more space behind him to attack, but when he is given the chance to do the essential duties of a full-back, he now seems utterly incapable. Anthony Martial has been off his best form for a few weeks, but Ivanovic helpfully showed him inside, failed to keep pace with him throughout, and also gave him some cheap free kicks to build up the pressure. Chelsea found it largely impossible to create chances of their own, and instead relied on the brain-melts of the United midfield and defence to give up possession in dangerous areas. They clearly have more willingness to put effort in for the club under Guus Hiddink than they did Jose Mourinho, but there remains a great deal of work to be done to get them into the top half of the table.

United, however, have entered purgatory, along with their manager. Louis van Gaal is on death row, and every couple of days his players and the club’s fans are obliged to visit him to see if he’s been strapped to the chair yet. So far, the CEO, Edward Woodward, has failed to put him out of his misery.

There was an improvement of sorts for United last night. They ran forward and played the ball quickly, and unsurprisingly, it created chances. For 20 minutes, Wayne Rooney looked like a footballer. Going into the first half, United had eased off a little bit, but had Chelsea on the ropes and just needed to keep persevering.

Instead, it seemed that Van Gaal asked his players to revert to type. The running reduced, the passes seemed to go backwards or sideways, and Rooney’s incompetence returned, as he missed two excellent chances (one was offside, but he didn’t know that as he was swinging his leg at the air instead of the ball). At the end of the match, United had a manager who had seen a slight but insufficient improvement against a currently woeful side. He was still the same manager who admitted he didn’t have a clue, and the players still didn’t want to play for him as instructed. And yet, here we are, ready to visit him on death row again in a few days. United are wilfully wasting yet another season.

Spurs in no mood to wait for competition to catch up

Spurs aren’t wasting any more time, though. Watford are no fools, and were on an excellent run of form of their own before they met Tottenham. During the match, Mauricio Pochettino moved from three to four at the back, and at both stages of the game, it worked. It wasn’t a ludicrous, Brendan Rodgers-type affectation, to play to the crowd and demonstrate his own genius. It wasn’t a Louis van Gaal-type blunder, to interfere unnecessarily in the relentless pursuit of ball retention at the expense of actually scoring goals.

Ordinarily, it might not be the most convincing win, to scrape out a 2-1 win against a side down to 10 men. But this was hours after their last match, played with a small squad. It was against a Watford side often full of running and vigour, with Odion Ighalo and Troy Deeney able to stretch and batter defences. To visit Vicarage Road and succeed in such circumstances, in the context of Spurs’s past vulnerabilities, could actually mean something.

Stats boffins now say that Spurs should finish fourth. They should have finished fourth a lot of times, but have rarely achieved it. It’s a credit to Pochettino and his squad, last seen in the arms of their crowd celebrating their excellence and their belief, that there are far fewer doubters this season. This is no burst of form, it is a continued, probably sustainable improvement in ability and understanding.

Mark Hughes manages to put a smile on someone else’s face

As might be Stoke City under Mark Hughes. He might be the world’s most miserable man, but it’s not reflected on the pitch. Xherdan Shaqiri, Marko Arnautovic and Bojan Krkic are one of the most exciting attacking trios in the Premier League, and have Ibrahim Afellay to help out as Hughes commits to attacking. He can do that in the knowledge that with his back four, one or two destroyers (or cloggers, more accurately for some of the players) ahead of the improving Jack Butland, that any attack will have to do something special to find a way through. Stoke will finish the year in ninth, but with victories over both Manchester United and Everton that are remarkable in their own ways, they may be disappointed to finish the season outside of the European places.