Mesut Ozil steals the show as second-half blitz sees irresistible Arsenal hammer Huddersfield
Arsenal 5 Huddersfield 0: The home side pulled away from their opponents in style as Olivier Giroud, Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil added to Alexandre Lacazette's opener
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Your support makes all the difference.There were just over 20 minutes left here, with Arsenal hanging on to a 1-0 lead against Huddersfield Town. It was the time in the game when home fans start to get nervous, especially with the visitors slicing through on the break and Petr Cech palming one ball onto his own crossbar.
But then Mesut Ozil decided enough was enough and four minutes later Arsenal were 4-0 up. He had been very good all night, drifting into space, timing everything just right, even the decoy stepovers, and had been let down only by bad luck and errant team-mates. But this intervention was on another level: assist, assist, goal, all of it one-touch, instinctive, precise football.
It was the type of burst of sustained brilliance that only the very best players can produce, snatching the game away from the opposition before they realised what had happened. Huddersfield had been well in the game at 1-0 but there was just nothing they could do to stop what Ozil did to them. You can’t foul a player you can’t catch.
In his last appearance here at the Emirates 11 days ago, Ozil had been exceptional, directing their 2-0 win against Tottenham Hotspur. That was a glaring reminder that, for all his faults and all the frustrations, he is still a world-class footballer, capable of doing things that almost everyone else cannot. But if the derby was about Ozil’s intelligence and movement elevating those around him, this evening was more of a one-man mission. He decided to win the game by himself and was good enough to deliver it.
It started with a one-touch move that he led from the half-way line to the back of the net. First he exchanged passes with Sead Kolasinac and then with Alexis Sanchez before crossing to the near post to Olivier Giroud, who was left with a simple finish. That was 2-0, game over, but Ozil was far from done.
With his next trick he raced down the right as if he were Hector Bellerin. Aaron Ramsey, who can read his runs better than most, picked him out with a through ball. Ozil whipped a perfect first-time cross back into the box, straight to the waiting Sanchez, who beat Jonas Lossl before Huddersfield realised what had gone on.
Two wonderful first-time assists in two minutes of football and Ozil was still hungry. Two minutes after that he got the goal that he deserved. Racing behind Mathias Jorgensen onto another Ramsey pass, Ozil lifted it straight over Lossl, first time of course, and into the net. The whole show – two assists and a goal - had lasted four minutes. If you saw it over the course of 90 you would think yourself privileged to be there.
The evening had started with Arsenal taking a very early lead but failing, until Ozil intervened, to build on it. Huddersfield had come here making six changes and going to a 5-4-1. But it did not work, and Arsenal’s opening goal was so poor defensively it made you wonder why Huddersfield did not stick with the same plan and same players that worked so well on Sunday against Manchester City.
One quick clever move pulled Huddersfield apart, creating and then exploiting gaps that should never exist that this level. Granit Xhaka had the ball in far too much space in the middle, and he rolled a forward pass to Aaron Ramsey. With his back to goal, Ramsey flicked the ball on and into a huge channel between Martin Cranie and Christopher Schindler. Alexandre Lacazette ran onto it and showed for the seventh time this season what an accomplished finisher he is.
But while the lead allowed Arsenal to relax, it also made them sloppy. They offered Huddersfield enough openings on the break to keep them worried. Steve Mounie went down in the vicinity of Shkodran Mustafi, trying but failing to win a penalty. But then Mounie set free Colin Quaner, racing down the left, and his shot was blocked at full stretch by Laurent Koscielny.
The start of the second half was Huddersfield’s best spell, and all of a sudden it felt plausible this could end up 1-1 or worse. When Quaner runs at goal he is difficult to stop and soon after the restart he was through again, thumping a shot that Petr Cech had to stick out his right leg to block. With their next attack it was Mounie who raced through, and when his shot his Koscielny and looped up, Cech nearly made a meal of it, punching it away off his own bar.
If that was the moment that made Arsenal fans worry, it was the moment that made Ozil wake up. And when he was done, the game was long dead. This was Arsenal’s fifth win in six and their one defeat was at Manchester City. They are now four points ahead of Tottenham Hotspur and with Manchester United to come here on Saturday. For as long as they have Ozil playing like this, they can keep looking up.
Arsenal (3-4-3) Cech; Koscielny, Mustafi, Monreal; Bellerin, Xhaka, Ramsey, Kolasinac; Ozil, Lacazette, Sanchez
Huddersfield (5-4-1) Lossl; Hadergjonaj, Jorgensen, Schindler, Cranie, Lowe; Quaner, Mooy, Hogg, Kachunga; Mounie
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