English Premier League: Sunday belonged to North London – Matchday 30

Troy Deeney’s parting comments that Arsenal lacked ‘cojones’ in their previous meeting looked to have fired the Gunners up for this one.

Arsenal began the first half with intent, and had a lot of early chances, before Mustafi headed home from a Mesut Ozil free kick after 7 minutes. The assist was Ozil’s 50th in the Premier League, and broke a record for the fastest any player has ever reached that amount.

Watford were wasteful. They had chances, but too often made the wrong decisions or failed to execute the correct ones. Javi Gracia couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

In the second half it was more of the same, this time the reunited Dortmund colleagues combined, Mkhitaryan playing in Aubameyang, who rounded Greek goalkeeper Karnezis before passing it into the net.

It wasn’t just the forwards who stepped it up for Arsenal, as Petr Cech saved a Troy Deeney penalty, conceded by the promising full-back Maitland-Niles. Unbelievably, it was the veteran’s first penalty save for Arsenal, which secured another Premier League record of 200 clean sheets.

https://twitter.com/premierleague/status/972855701394554880

Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan combined again, this time Aubameyang the provider, as Mkhitaryan forced one in past Karnezis from just inside the box to make it 3-0, and round off a confidence boosting performance for Arsenal before their second-leg against AC Milan this week in the Europa League.