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MOTD- Sunderland 1-3 Arsenal

By on September 14, 2013
Aaron Ramsey bagged a double while Mesut Ozil made his debut as Arsenal beat Sunderland 3-1.

Aaron Ramsey bagged a double while Mesut Ozil made his debut as Arsenal beat Sunderland 3-1.

Arsene Wenger’s £42.5m new boy Mesut Ozil shined with an assist in his debut, but it was Aaron Ramsey who lit up the Stadium of Light with two goals, as Arsenal romped an out of form Sunderland to climb to the top of the Premier League table. Olivier Giroud bagged his fourth goal of the campaign to take Arsenal level on nine points with Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool, while Sunderland slid down to last place in the Premier League.

Sunderland manager Paolo Di Canio desperately needed a win, but things did not look good for The Black Cats with Arsenal starting brightly. The Gunners saw most of the ball in the opening minutes and found themselves in front after only eleven minutes when a Kieran Gibbs long ball found Ozil down the left flank. The German controlled it with his deft touch and slipped it through to Giroud, who stabbed a low curling shot into the bottom corner of the net from the edge of the box.

A flurry of chances followed the goal, with Modibo Diakite beating Giroud to a Sunderland corner at the near post before flicking a header onto the crossbar in the thirteenth minute. Theo Walcott almost put Arsenal in front in the fifteenth minute when Ozil put him through on goal with a lovely through ball, but with miles of space blasted his shot straight at Sunderland goalkeeper Keiran Westwood from fifteen yards. Jozy Altidore then had his dipping long-range shot pushed wide by Wojciech Szczesny, as Sunderland began to look dangerous on the counter-attack. But it was Arsenal who had the majority of the chances, and Ozil nearly put the away side in front in the twenty-sixth minute after Jack Wilshere slipped the attacking-midfielder in down the right, only for Westwood to expertly block Ozil’s shot.

Walcott then planted a header into the side-netting but Sunderland grabbed an equalizer four minutes into the second half. Laurent Koscielny stupidly brought Adam Johnson down inside the Arsenal box, and Craig Gardner coolly buried the resulting penalty into the bottom corner. Di Canio’s side’s confidence grew with Steven Fletcher having his tap-in disallowed for offside in the sixtieth minute, and only moments later a Craig Gardner free-kick evaded everybody in the box and hit the post, only for it to be called offside on Ki-Sung-Yueng. But Arsenal weathered the small storm and responded with a second goal in the sixty-seventh minute.

A Carl Jenkinson cross from the right found Ramsey on the edge of the box, and the Englishman sliced a beautiful one-touch volley past Westwood into the back of the net. Sunderland seemed to have grabbed a second equalizer as the match rolled into it’s final twenty-minutes, but Altidore’s finish was questionably called back for an earlier foul by referee Martin Atkinson.

Arsenal then finished the game off following wonderfully simple one-touch football from Wenger’s men, with Ramsey playing Ozil, who passed it to Giroud, who flicked it into the path of Ramsey. The midfielder curled it around the oncoming Westwood from six yards into the bottom corner to put Arsenal up 3-1 in the seventy-sixth minute. Although Sunderland tried to mount a spectacular late comeback, with Altidore coming close with a curling effort towards the top corner, Arsenal held on, resulting in Di Canio, of course, getting sent down the tunnel.
Man of the Match: Aaron Ramsey

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.