Stoke 1 - 4 ArsenalArsenal boost Champions League ambitions by thrashing feeble Stoke City
Home team scorersPeter Crouch 67
Away team scorersOlivier Giroud 42
Mesut Ozil 55
Alexis Sanchez 76
Olivier Giroud 80
Arsenal will still not reach the top four if Liverpool and Manchester City win all their matches, though at least the Gunners are doing there bit to put pressure on the teams above them.
Three straight wins is a decent response to the defeat by Tottenham and this latest takes them within a point of Liverpool with two games left for each side. Arsenal are beginning to play well again too, their second goal here was a thing of beauty, while Liverpool, in particular, appear to be succumbing to nerves in the final run-in. The matter is still in the hands of Jürgen Klopp and his players, though suffice to say anxiety is beginning to develop on Merseyside about Middlesbrough at home on the final day of the season, never mind Sunday’s game away at West Ham.
What this game proved, in addition to the fact that Arsène Wenger’s new formation is still holding up, is that the experienced players forming the front three can be relied upon to deliver when required. Olivier Giroud scored the opening goal, Mesut Özil and Alexis Sánchez combined impressively for the second. On the basis of course and distance, it might be a mistake to write off Arsenal just yet.
They were the more threatening in the first period, with Sánchez looking particularly determined and Nacho Monreal getting in on goal on a couple of occasions. It might have been better for the visitors had someone other than their left wing-back managed to find himself on the end of their best chances, for in spite of his excellent finish against Manchester City in the FA Cup semi-final, Monreal is not really a goalscorer. When a ball from Özil came through to him unmarked at the far post he miscontrolled and saw the chance go by. Then when good work from Francis Coquelin allowed Héctor Bellerín to send a cross over from the right, Monreal could only manage a header against an upright, though in fairness he did well to even manage that after a slight touch from nearby Giroud had deflected the course of the ball.
Sánchez sent a low shot narrowly wide after a mistake by Glen Johnson conceded possession in a dangerous area, but the only actual save Jack Butland in the Stoke goal had to make before Arsenal took the lead towards the end of the first half was early on when he tipped a speculative header from Shkodran Mustafi over the bar following a corner. Stoke were even worse, offering little in the way of width or penetration and looking to Xherdan Shaqiri for inspiration. There are worse plans, though on this occasion Shaqiri was unable to come up with anything more effective than cutting in from the wing and making space for a curling left foot shot. Arsenal were alert to that danger, though Mustafi stepped into Shaqiri’s path a little too eagerly at one point to earn the game’s first booking.
Just as the first half was threatening to peter out uneventfully, Arsenal made the breakthrough with the move they had been attempting all afternoon. Coquelin held the ball in the centre before releasing Bellerín down the right, this time the pass allowing the wing-back to get in behind Erik Pieters, and from then on it was a relatively simple task to play the ball along the six-yard line to find Giroud waiting for a tap-in.
Stoke could have no real complaints. Their ball retention was so poor they practically invited Arsenal to come at them, and their attacks were so infrequent and disjointed that Mame Biram Diouf cut a lonely and isolated figure up front. A rare place in the starting line-up was Diouf’s reward for scoring his first goal of the season against Bournemouth the previous weekend, which in itself says a lot about the inadequacies of Stoke’s strikeforce. Saido Berahino, who still has not scored a goal since arriving for £12m in January, started the game on the bench.
Arsenal opened the second half with a stylish strike, Özil passing inside to Sánchez then gliding forward to meet a perfectly delivered return pass, the Chilean neatly bisecting Ryan Shawcross and Bruno Martins Indi to leave his team-mate with a straightforward finish.
Mark Hughes responded by sending on Peter Crouch and Saido Berahino, which he possibly should have done earlier, for the unsettling effect on the visitors was almost immediate. Diouf missed a difficult chance at the far post , Martins Indi saw a header tipped over by Petr Cech, then finally Crouch ghosted in front of the goalkeeper to meet a better Marko Arnautovic delivery and pull a goal back.
Arsenal protested furiously that Crouch had used his hand to divert the ball past Cech, and both the initial surprise at the veteran’s agility and subsequent television replays suggested they had a point, but referee Mike Dean was unmoved. He had not detected anything untoward, so Crouch and his telescopic reach got away with it. Rather mischievously, the Stoke sponsors nominated the goalscorer their man of the match.
It mattered little anyway. Before the home crowd could even begin to make enough noise to encourage a recovery, Arsenal had pushed their noses further in front, Sánchez advancing unchallenged into the area then placing a shot through Shawcross and beyond Butland. Arsenal’s best player was replaced by Aaron Ramsey shortly after that, and persistence from the substitute led to Giroud’s second 10 minutes from time.
While it is true that of the two sides only Arsenal had anything to play for, even so there is no room for complacency in the North-west. The final scoreline did not flatter the victors, it was actually the least they deserved.
Guardian