So, Arsenal fans we can reflect on a weekend that couldn’t have panned out any better (unless in some alternate universe Man City and Chelsea could both lose). Liverpool losing, Man United losing, Spurs losing and Everton slipping up at home to Palace.

Even with Chelsea and Man City drawing it was amusing in the fact that Frank Lampard was the one who stuck the thorn into Mourinho’s side.

The professional Arsenal haters were sharpening their tools on Saturday ready to drive a nail into their often wished coffin of Mesut Ozil and if that failed they had the failsafe of pointing out how many games Danny Welbeck has gone without scoring for the Gunners. You don’t need me to tell you how that one worked out for them.

I am not one to utilise this platform to deride other teams’ fortunes (unless it’s Spurs) so I won’t but what I will do is highlight the evident case and point that midweek European football can affect domestic form at the weekends. It seems a much more even playing field this season and some of the results this weekend are testament to that. At the moment Chelsea seem the main beneficiaries when you look at the table since they played Man City at the best possible time; that gruelling trip to Munich certainly made for a less vibrant City.

Everton, everyone’s favourite neutral team who won plaudits left, right and centre last season with their brave sustained challenge for a top four place stumbled with their first test yesterday. Liverpool too, who came within a whisker of winning the title last season struggled against West Ham; in their defence without their SAS strike force they’re not as formidable.

My theory does fall flat after this as the Gunners also endured a gruelling away trip to Germany; they were well and truly beaten that day yet swept Aston Villa away with ease. Until the first goal went in Villa did pose problems but Arsenal carried equal threat as their quality shone through. I suppose the freshness of switching up the team and deploying Ozil in the no.10 role was a tactic which threw Aston Villa’s preparation out the window.

Alexis Sanchez is synonymous with all that is good about the Arsenal attack that any team facing the Gunners would make provisions to neutralise his threat. The fact he didn’t start was the curveball the Villa management didn’t see coming.

The pressure on Mesut Ozil was intensified by a minority few in the press last week but enough to trigger a response from Arsene Wenger in his pre match press conference. If anything Ozil’s pre match motivation talk was already done by that minority of haters, You can ask any of the Aston Villa players how much of a ‘passenger’ Ozil was on Saturday.

Same applied for Danny Welbeck who smashed in his first goal for the Gunners and was a constant menace in the first half. Young Welbeck enjoyed his days work on Saturday and must surely have cracked open a wry smile yesterday as his former team with all their superstars that deemed him surplus to requirements crumbled under the pressure from Premiership giants Leicester City.

He has a new team now that will support him and give him the chance to prove how good he really can be in his favoured position. There’s no need to look back Danny, onwards and upwards.