A few changes were made to freshen up the team. Gibbs came in for Monreal, Gabriel for Koscielny, AOC for Campbell, and Chambers for Flamini, who had a slight ankle problem. Whatever he said to the men, it worked. After a slow start, Arsenal imposed themselves on their newly promoted opponents, and they simply could not keep up. We could have had five goals, but I'm happy for the clean sheet for Cech; it gives him the EPL record. (Is anyone else annoyed that they don't consider top division games prior to the formation of the EPL for records? It's ridiculous.) Ozil got another assist, on a header by Gabriel from his corner, and he scored on this gem of a goal, assisted by Giroud. There were three or four clear-cut chances for more, but we got the three points and that's what counts.
Arseblog liked Chambers in the Coquelin/Flamini role, but I still remain unconvinced. He seems slow to me, both physically and in his decisionmaking. I think he'd be passed and bullied by a better midfield than Bournemouth's. They were pretty bad today. The smaller clubs have trouble with crowded schedules, but then so did we.
We need to pick it up. There's no getting around the fact that we dropped a lot of points in November and December that we should have won. Southampton absolutely dominated us...Southampton! Alexis can't come back fast enough. Ramsey has been a rock, and Theo is coming along. The Ox showed signs of life today. But we're too dependent on one man's incredible skills. 16 assists! Incredible. The bright spot, of course, is that no one else has been winning consistently either. Halfway through, and at 39 points (pending Leicester's game in hand) we're leading the league. I'm not a stats guy, but that has to be a really low total for a first half leader. Hell, Tottenham is in 3rd (pending Man City's game in hand). They couldn't win the league, could they? This year, they might. They have that "team of destiny" mojo, it seems to me. It's up to us to break their hearts, as usual.
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