Swansea vs Arsenal match report: Gunners continue fine form with Olivier Giroud, Laurent Koscielny and Joel Campbell on target

Swansea CIty 0 Arsenal 3

(2015 The Arsenal Football Club Plc)

After an astonishingly good performance by Mesut Özil which helped keeep Arsenal in the title hunt, Arsène Wenger was asked about the latest events at Stamford Bridge.

“I think it’s better I don’t talk about that,” the Arsenal manager said, although he couldn’t quite stop the hint of a smile. “Let’s focus on our quality.”

This is the thing with Wenger and his team right now. Wins such as this 3-0 victory over Swansea City mean Arsenal can keep their focus on finally winning the League for the first time since 2004, and their manager can continue to look beyond petty rivalries.

Arsenal certainly look to have got beyond recent problems. What was just as impressive about this win was Özil’s brilliance in setting up all three goals – scored by Olivier Giroud, Laurent Koscielny and Joel Campbell – was how his team got three points despite the road bumps put in front of them.

It had seemed like this could be set up for that classic kind of Arsenal title-run slip. It was this very stadium at this very stage of the season last year, after all, that they suffered such a campaign-disrupting 2-1 defeat.

Swansea ended up doing the double over them in 2014-15, and this week seemed to bring a double blow to Arsenal’s confidence. They were defeated 3-0 in the League Cup to Sheffield Wednesday, while also losing Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to injury, seemingly initiating the usual winter fitness crisis.

That feeling of trepidation would only have spread when Swansea started so promisingly. The difference is that Arsenal are now performing so well. They stood up, rode their luck and eventually rolled over Swansea.

After the game, Wenger admitted that Arsenal came to the game “a bit on edge” but “showed quality again”.

The “irony”, as Wenger’s opposite number, Garry Monk, put it, was that Swansea showed plenty of quality themselves. The big question for his side is how they went from a game where they could have been 2-0 up by half-time, to being so resoundingly beaten 3-0.

Bafétimbi Gomis badly squandered a one-on-one early in proceedings, before having a header saved by Petr Cech, and they might even have had a penalty for a Per Mertesacker handball.

“I’m disappointed to lose that game,” Monk admitted. “It’s a hard one because there were a lot of positives. We were the better team in the first half, created the better chances, playing some very good football.

“I think 3-0 flatters Arsenal. They don’t deserve to win 3-0 at all: rather than Arsenal earning that win, I think that we gifted it to them.”

He was referring to the defensive errors that led to the first two goals, but they didn’t happen in a vacuum.

For the first, four minutes after the half-time break, Giroud showed supreme movement in the area to leave himself unmarked for an Özil corner and easily head in. For the second, Lukasz Fabianski dropped Özil’s cross under pressure from Giroud and Koscielny, allowing the latter to easily score.

Monk complained that those are almost always given as fouls, but no one could complain about the quality of Özil’s ball across the box for the third. It meant that Campbell hit his first Arsenal goal, on the occasion of his first start for the club. It also meant that Arsenal can look at finishing first in the table with more optimism. “I am delighted,” Wenger beamed. “It’s always a difficult game. Last season Swansea took six points off us.” On this occasion, though, Arsenal took a huge step.

Swansea City: (4-3-3) Fabianski; Naughton, Fernandez, Williams, Taylor; Shelvey, Ki (Britton, 85), Sigurdsson; Ayew, Gomis (Eder, 85), Montero (Barrow, 78).

Arsenal: (4-2-3-1) Cech; Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal; Coquelin, Cazorla; Campbell (Gibbs, 85), Ozil (Iwobi, 90), Sanchez; Giroud (Chambers, 85).

Referee: Kevin Friend

Man of the match: Ozil (Arsenal)

Match rating: 7/10