Arsenal: It’s official, we are second half team

Another Arsenal victory and another scintillating second half display means it’s 10 wins out of 10, our first such run since 2007 and we are back in the top 4. We do need to start our games so much better though.

The stats don’t lie, Arsenal haven’t been ahead at half time in any of our 12 premier league games this season, and of the 22 goals we have scored only six of them have been scored in the first 45 minutes and two of them were against Chelsea.

Unai Emery has been talking about the importance of starting games well but the message needs to be dealt more harshly, because we just look lost when the game kicks off. To say that Leicester were the better team in the opening half an hour would be understating things. We were swarmed in wave after wave of attacks and again we didn’t look comfortable.

Leicester could feel aggrieved that they weren’t awarded a penalty when Rob Holding committed the most blatant handball you will see all season and could have landed a red card but the referee didn’t spot any of this and we rode our luck.

A goal was inevitable though and it wasn’t until we went 1-0 down that the Gunners woke up and started to threaten. We dominated the rest of the first half and we deserved our equalizer, which was brilliantly started and finished by Mesut Ozil who slotted first time into the corner.

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Whether or not it’s Unai Emery’s half time team talks that are doing the job or it’s just taking time for the game plan to click into place, Arsenal, yet again, came out in the second half looking like a different team.

The Leicester team didn’t get near our attack as, once again, the one-touch, pass and move football completely took apart the Leicester defence.

Mesut Ozil gave a real captain’s performance tonight, with his pinpoint passing unlocking the Leicester defence and it was his ball that Hector Bellerin latched onto to square for Aubemeyang to put us in front. Then, just like the Everton and Watford games, it was a quick fire double that killed the game. The game clincher, though, was reminiscent of Ramsey’s against Fulham in the fact that it was a beautiful team goal and I can see us scoring a fair few of them this season.

We have to err on the side of caution though. Ten wins out of ten is title-winning form no matter what teams you’re playing against, but right now we are really riding our luck. If Arsenal are starting games the same way we are finishing them then things could be a lot easier for us.