Arsenal Move to the Second Place in the Table: Five Talking Points of the Match Against Sunderland

Arsenal moved to second in the Premier League table thanks to a 3-1 win over Sunderland with Olivier Giroud scoring for both teams. Arsenal’s preparations for the game wasn’t ideal as they saw Santi Cazorla and Alexis Sanchez miss out on the game due to injuries.

This meant that Joel Campbell got a start for the Gunners and he took his chance by scoring the first goal before Giroud scored for Sunderland. The Frenchman then gave Arsenal the lead by scoring at the right end and Aaron Ramsey scored the third in the 90^th minute.

We look back at the encounter and share the five talking points from the game.

Joel Campbell should play more

Joel Campbell was on the end of his time at Arsenal, but the injuries have given him a chance of showing what he can do. His performance against Zagreb showed what he can do and he was doing it again against Sunderland. He got the first goal which got Arsenal going, even though they weren’t playing the best football. Campbell didn’t do much apart from that, but he should get a few more chances and if he keeps on scoring, he could well be at Arsenal next season as well.

Sunderland could have gotten more

The Black Cats might be ruing their luck of not getting more from the game. Sunderland were well drilled and gave Arsenal a lot of problems. They deservedly got the equalizer when Olivier Giroud scored into his own net, but they couldn’t deal with the quality of the Arsenal team. They were also excellently denied by Petr Cech in the Arsenal goal, any other keeper would have conceded a goal in the opening stages, but Petr Cech kept Arsenal in the game.

Arsenal must play better in Europe

Arsenal face a crunch tie in Europe in the Champions League and if they play like this against Olympiakos they will concede more goals and that could well mean the end of their European dream. Arsenal have to win that game by two clear goals and they have to play better both in attack and defence, anything less and once again it would be an empty season in Europe for the London side.

Allardyce could well save Sunderland

Sunderland came into the season looking haggard and when Dick Advocaat left the club, it felt all doom and gloom for them but Sam Allardyce has changed things at the club and they look like they could just survive this season. The Black Cats could have gotten more from this game, but their performance was good and hopefully they should get more points at home than away. He has made them tough to beat and Arsene will vouch for that after this game.

Ozil needs to be taken care off

Arsene Wenger has had a hard time with injuries to key personnel and he must take care of Mesut Ozil. The German has been playing out of his skin since the start of the season, but he must be rested else he could also face the same problem as Alexis Sanchez. Burnout could be the real problem for Arsenal and Arsene, he needs to rest his best players and Ozil isn’t getting enough of it, especially with the December fixtures all lining up.