The moment Mesut Ozil replaced the struggling Danny Welbeck, everything seemed to just go wrong for Arsenal.

At the time we were 1-0 up, not overly on top, but also not in much danger. A brilliant run by Alex Iwobi saw him put Mesut Ozil clean through. One-on-one with the goal keeper, he tried to give Gomes the eyes and go the opposite way.

Gomes read Ozil like a book, and fall on the ball to his left, good chance gone. But at least we were still 1-0 up.

Gomes quickly released the ball, and before we had mentally recovered from the Ozil miss, Watford had a penalty.

Ozil carry’s the blame for not scoring, the referee has to carry the blame for giving Watford a penalty that never was.

STOKE ON TRENT, ENGLAND – MAY 13: Arsene Wenger the head coach / manager of Arsenal during the Premier League match between Stoke City and Arsenal at Bet365 Stadium on May 13, 2017 in Stoke on Trent, England. (Photo by James Baylis – AMA/Getty Images)

As Arsene Wenger said, it was a scandalous decision. One of those decisions that makes you pine for VAR’s to come in sooner rather than later.

1-1, Ozil had given Watford a lifeline with his miss, the referee had put them straight back into the game.

From that moment on, things went from bad to worse The Arsenal as Watford began to dominate.

Olivier Giroud came on for Alexandre Lacazette and Arsenal sat back, inviting pressure on from Watford.

On the 85th minute, Wenger looked to twist rather than stick. Jack Wilshere set to come on for Alex Iwobi. But just as Iwobi was coming to the touchline, Koscielny signalled that he can no longer carry on.

Wenger kiboshed the substitution with screams from the travelling fans of ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’ as Rob Holding quickly stripped down and came on for Laurent Koscielny.

Rather than make an attacking change, Wenger was forced into a defensive change. Could he have bought Wilshere on for Koscielny, gone 4 at the back?In hindsight, yes, because we lost the game. But hindsight makes football so easy.

What it meant is rather than being on the front foot for the last 10 minutes of the game, Arsenal were on the back foot, and inevitably Watford got the injury time winner.

Petr Cech made a brilliant double save, before Tom Cleverely put the ball in the net, whilst Granit Xhaka failed to track his man and was stood on the edge of the box, hands on hips. It reminded me of Denilson.

Everything seemed to go downhill when Mesut Ozil missed that chance.

I have said before, the league title this year will be decided between the two Manchester clubs. Chelsea lost to Crystal Palace to remain level on points with Arsenal, and Liverpool slipped to 8th with the bore-draw against Manchester United.

Watford’s win took them to 4th in the table. It shows Manchester City’s strength that they scored 6 at Vicarage Road, and another 7 yesterday against Stoke. 29 goals in 8 games, just 4 conceded. Scrap what I said earlier about it being between the two Manchester clubs, Manchester City just look like they have it all.

I guess that is what you expect when they spent £212,200,000 last summer and over half a billion pounds in the last 3 seasons.

Arsenal, Spurs, Liverpool and Chelsea all look fairly average. Whilst Spurs won yesterday, they did just scrap through. All 4 will continue to lose points against sides they should beat.

The title is gone, despite us not even being 10 games in. Time to concentrate on the Europa League? The poor league campaign will soon be forgotten if we win a European trophy.

Onwards to Belgrade…

Keenos
Follow @KeenosAFC
ps: Someone needs to swat that annoying Bumblebee