Arsenal: Henrikh Mkhitaryan did something Mesut Ozil never could

Arsenal had a complete failing at the start against Chelsea, but some didn’t want it to stay that way. Some didn’t seem to mind, however.

Well, if Manchester City was an improvement from last year, then Chelsea was a compounding of that improvement. And I mean that in a good way. Because when Arsenal seemed down and out, they turned the game on its head and cut apart the Blues at their own home.

And it was largely thanks to one man – Henrikh Mkhitaryan. The Armenian attack contributed five total chances, accounting for both goals, one being a fantastic finish from distance and the other being a superb cross for the assist.

From his goal on, he was immaculate. He was the driving force behind everything. He looked every bit the part of a world beater, despite everything failing around him.

Which is quite the statement, because for the first 20 minutes, Mkhitaryan had arguably the worst time I’ve seen from any Arsenal player in years. He was absolutely horrible, passing the ball to the wrong team, missing wide open chances.

He was atrocious and I couldn’t see anything turning that around.

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But Mkhitaryan did. He bore down, went inside of himself, and came back a new man. A new man determined to make a difference and actually make a go of a match that should not have gotten so far out of hand.

Meanwhile, Mesut Ozil was the exact same as Mkhitaryan for those first 20 minutes. The only difference is that when Mkhitaryan turned things around for himself, Ozil remained a shadow of his true ability. He was pathetic. He didn’t create a single chance and aside from his one decent effort at goal early on, he might as well not have even been on the pitch.

And when he was taken off, you could feel the dejection radiating off of him. He knew he had had a bad game, but what makes it worse is that he didn’t care how that affected the team, still in a dogfight. He moped his little heart off as he came off the pitch.

After that match, Mkhitaryan can hold his head high and be proud of what he was able to accomplish. Ozil should be doing the opposite. And this is a problem that Ozil has always had. When it goes bad, it stays bad. Mkhitaryan looked like the same in the little time that we’ve had him, but we just saw him turn a game around completely.

The chips are stacking against Ozil, and Mkhitaryan is the one stacking them.