Bournemouth vs Arsenal match report: Mesut Ozil and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain get Gunners back to winning ways

Bournemouth 0 Arsenal 2

Mesut Ozil celebrates into the camera after scoring against Bournemouth (Getty)

Aaron Ramsey rightly felt Arsenal’s “badly needed” victory yesterday was settled in the first half but the lingering question was when exactly that was. Could it have been when Mathieu Flamini avoided an eighth-minute red card for a two-footed challenge on Dan Gosling? Or was it in the 88 seconds when both Mesut Özil and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain struck, ending 328 minutes of scoreless frustration for Arsenal and recharging their title challenge?

Really, the two are connected, especially since an ultimately easy win over Bournemouth could have been a lot trickier. Arsenal finally turned their form around but Eddie Howe, the Bournemouth manager, believed Flamini should have gone and that his dismissal could have turned the game.

“I felt it was a red card,” Howe said. “I had a very good view and I felt it was two-footed. That type of tackle has been outlawed, you can’t do it. For me it was a pretty simple decision. It was a straight red card and it would have had a huge bearing on the game. I was surprised when the ref only produced the yellow.

“Dan could have been seriously injured on another occasion. That’s why it should have been a straight red. It didn’t look like he was in control.”

Flamini denied that, said the referee made “a good decision”, and was backed in that view by his manager, Arsène Wenger. Either way, it meant Arsenal avoided what could have become a very difficult situation after four games without a victory, and won this with a quick double blast.

Chamberlain celebrates scoring Arsenal's second (Getty)

The fact that their two goals came in such rapid succession is probably not a coincidence, since it felt as though they were suddenly released by finally scoring.

They were not exactly playing with freedom before Özil’s strike, and the manner of the goal said much. Rather than the incisive passing that marked the first half of their campaign, Arsenal went direct. Ramsey played a long ball up, Olivier Giroud excellently knocked it down, and Özil lashed it past Artur Boruc with a force that suggested he wanted to bury any remaining anxiety.

Wenger admitted afterwards that the scoreless run had been weighing on his players’ minds. He praised Özil’s new combative spirit – and how he has finally started scoring with his right foot.

“They don’t score, the confidence goes quickly,” the Arsenal manager said. “I think [Özil] has added a fighting attitude. It was a top performance again. He scores with his right foot, very interesting for us. If he starts to score with his right foot, he will become even stronger.”

Arsenal immediately looked stronger in play, and instantly put together the sort of slick move that had been absent in the last few games. Ramsey fed Oxlade-Chamberlain for the midfielder to power the ball in precisely off the post.

That was effectively game over, and it did seem for a period that Arsenal could use this game to improve their goal difference. Their rivals Tottenham Hotspur currently sit ahead of them in second place in the table by a margin of nine goals. Arsenal could not reduce that gap further, and did not create much in the second half, although a lot of that was down to Bournemouth’s refusal to capitulate. The Cherries had the better of the second half, and forced Petr Cech into some fine saves by the end, most notably from a Steve Cook half-volley.

“We were looking for one goal to make a real game of it at the end,” Howe said. “I felt one goal would have potentially made them retreat even further and get nervy. But it didn’t come for us despite some really good play.

“We had a lot of ball in their final third but the disappointing thing is once we’d worked so hard to get the ball in there we didn’t hurt them or work their keeper enough, although he’s made a couple of great saves late on. Our pressure didn’t turn into chances.”

Arsenal were not quite back to their best, but they were back to winning, which Wenger admitted was the most important thing, especially in the light of their next league fixture: Leicester City at home on Sunday.

“In the end, the second half was more about keeping the result than continuing our flow in the game. It was an important three points for us for two reasons. One, we haven’t won for a while, we had four [league] games without a win. When you play at the top, that’s a long period, confidence drops a little bit. [Secondly, with] Leicester running away and us playing them next week, to make the game interesting it was very important for us to win today.”

Wenger admitted that Leicester are now favourites for the title, in what seemed like a subtle attempt to increase the pressure on Claudio Ranieri’s team before their visit to the Emirates.

“Look, in one week Leicester have beaten Liverpool and Man City. So that means suddenly they become the favourite in the league. That makes our game on Sunday a very big one,” Wenger said. “We have a big game at home now against them, and I believe we have enough quality and nerves to deal with that.”

Yesterday’s win will have bolstered that approach, as Ramsey admitted.

“We needed it badly,” the midfielder said. “We realised what Leicester did. We needed to close the gap. There was no room for error and we responded really well.”

Now the Gunners just have to find the right response to Leicester’s searing pace. At least, they look a little more up to speed going forward themselves – as those 88 seconds yesterday showed.