Arsenal’s Aaron Ramsey goes on hat-trick rampage against Everton

Well, that didn’t take long. For Arsenal this was an evening of instant ignition, a 5-1 win that scarcely reflected their superiority against a meek and muddled Everton.

Arsène Wenger had enjoyed one of his more frantic January transfer windows, the doors of the Emirates revolving like the barrels on a Las Vegas slot machine. On a chilly north London day the fruits of those toils clicked beautifully into place. Most notably Henrikh Mkhitaryan produced a wonderfully deft display of attacking craft, creating three of Arsenal’s goals, while Aaron Ramsey rampaged unimpeded in central midfield and scored the first hat-trick of his career.

There were riches all over the pitch. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored on his debut and showed signs of the supercharged speed he still has in reserve, the kind of speed that alters the entire feel of a game, and which Arsenal have lacked in a centre-forward since Thierry Henry left. Behind Aubameyang the re-signed Mesut Özil played like he had just woken up surrounded by the most wonderful array of birthday presents.

Even before kick-off there were elements of the Premier League at its brash, shopaholic best, with intriguing nuggets of rejig and relocation shot through both sides. Eliaquim Mangala made his debut for Everton while his team-mate Theo Walcott was applauded warmly on his return.

0:47

For Arsenal the new challenge of finding the space to cram in all their mature attacking galácticos saw Mkhitaryan and Özil providing a dreamy-looking creative fulcrum alongside the muscular prompts of Alex Iwobi. It all fell into place. The first half in particular had a sheen of quick-passing perfection as Everton were repeatedly scythed apart, albeit an Everton who seemed to have forgotten not just how to defend, but that defending existed as a concept in the first place. Afterwards Sam Allardyce described his team’s performance as “pathetic” and “crap”, complaining bitterly of the inability of his players to follow a gameplan

Instead the traffic flowed one way, beginning with a beautifully worked goal after six minutes. Özil played a neat pass into Aubameyang, who laid the ball out to Mkhitaryan on the right. From his low cross Ramsey had space to tuck the ball home at his leisure. It was a goal that had some of that deceptive old Arsenal ease about it, the high-speed passing football Wenger is so keen to return to. And so it went on.

With 13 minutes gone Aubameyang had his first sight of goal, his shot from Ramsey’s cross blocked by a sprawling challenge. From Özil’s corner Shkodran Mustafi flicked on and Laurent Koscielny was free, almost on the line, to dive and head in the second.

Time and again in those early moments Everton struggled to track the movement of Arsenal’s midfield and the runs of the forward players into space behind the wing-backs. The third goal duly arrived on 19 minutes at the end of another lovely move. Özil’s run and pass found Ramsey with enough time to think for a bit, scratch his ear and finally decide on a sidefoot shot that found the top of the net via a deflection off Mangala.

Shortly after there was a glimpse of Aubameyang in full flight, scampering away into the open green spaces and leaving four blue shirts for dead before his low shot was well saved by Jordan Pickford. His goal was coming. It duly arrived two minutes later. Iwobi found Mkhitaryan, who turned and played the perfect nudged pass into Aubameyang’s run. His dinked finish on the move was a thing of beauty, the ball hanging gently in the north London air before nuzzling into the corner of the net with Aubameyang already celebrating.

Everton began the second half with a surge of Sam-driven energy. For a while they swarmed over Arsenal’s midfield as the home team looked a little sleepy and sated. Oumar Niasse hit a post but really should have scored, sliding on to Walcott’s low cross and colliding heavily with Petr Cech. They deservedly pulled one back, the substitute Dominic Calvert-Lewin planting a fine header past Cech from Yannick Bolasie’s cross. Cech left the field injured shortly afterwards, suffering from his collision with Niasse.

Tom Davies and Morgan Schneiderlin had been key for Everton in that period, as the visitors finally began to compress the spaces in central midfield. Ramsey demonstrated the other side of this on 74 minutes, striding forward and pinging a low shot past Pickford to complete his hat-trick from another perfectly weighted Mkhitaryan cross. With the decks cleared of malcontents and an infusion of high-class blood this felt like a fresh start to the season for Arsenal.

Mkhitaryan and Aubameyang in particular, so familiar from their Dortmund days, performed like a genuinely alluring bolt-on attacking part. The question from here, with ground to make up, is how far this regeared team can ride that thrilling early wave.