As Tomas Rosicky made his way off at the final whistle, two security guards hurried out of the tunnel and placed a shiny FA Cup on a plinth by the side of the pitch. The temptation for Arsenal’s captain, after this dreamy individual performance, was to be done with it and raise the trophy aloft in front of 4,000 travelling supporters. Rosicky dragged the holders through, steering Arsenal in to the fifth round after this hard-working Brighton team had twice threatened to make a real Cup tie of it. Arsenal’s 34-year-old midfielder had a cigar on out there, playing this fourth round tie as if it were an exhibition match.
‘If you love football, you love Rosicky,’ purred Arsenal’s manager Arsene Wenger and he was right. Some of his passing was from a future era. There were five goals at the Amex Stadium and it makes sense to start with the best. Rosicky, rightly, was responsible for it. Before the 59th minute, when Rosicky scored their third, this had been a majestic run through of flicks, backheels and turns that you would expect to witness as part of a training ground warm down. Instead the Arsenal captain was playing for real, starting the move for his volleyed goal with an unfathomable backheeled reverse pass into the feet of Olivier Giroud. It was a Billy Bremner ball with bells on, a glance one way to fool the opposition defence (not difficult with Gordon Greer and Lewis Dunk at the back) and a pass in another direction. Giroud, outstanding again up top for Arsenal, responded with a dinked chip into Rosicky’s field of vision on the edge of the area and he volleyed spectacularly beyond David Stockdale.
Rosicky was always one step ahead here, always a fraction quicker to the ball, always able to lift it over the outstretched legs of Sam Baldock, Rohan Ince, the Brighton captain Greer or his central defensive partner Dunk. We are not worthy. The challenge for Arsenal, after keeping Chris Hughton’s team at arm’s length down on the south coast, is to win this trophy for the sixth time in Arsene Wenger’s spell as manager. You cannot put it past them, particularly after Chelsea, Manchester City, Southampton and Tottenham all exited the competition on Saturday. They are just two games away from another Wembley semi-final. The scoreline suggests something a bit tighter, but truth be told Arsenal had slipped effortlessly through the gears in an impressive opening spell. Theo Walcott scored for the first time in a year, syncing up with Calum Chambers when the Arsenal right back burst down the right with just over a minute on the clock. Chambers cut back for Walcott and the Arsenal winger gained a yard or more on Dunk before he drilled an effort beyond Stockdale. They scored again when Rosicky drifted in from the left and allowed time and space to pick out Ozil, unmarked, inside Brighton’s penalty area with his first reverse pass.
By the time Dunk reacted, Ozil had scored for the first time since his return from injury earlier this month. Rosicky had made it, though.To underscore the gulf in class there was a moment between Arsenal’s opening two goals when Mathieu Flamini, Aaron Ramsey and Giroud left Brighton’s players eating grass as they combed through their defence. Beyond that Walcott, who temporarily traded wings with Rosicky, could have had a penalty towards the end of the half when Bruno Saltor raised his hands inside the area. For some reason referee Michael Oliver waved play on, something which became a feature of this Cup tie. The Amex Stadium, bursting at the seams with a record attendance of just over 30,000, had fallen flat. Those blue and white scarves needed a lift and they got it when Brighton’s journeyman forward Chris O’Grady scored five minutes after the break.Arsenal failed to clear, with Nacho Monreal’s awkward, skied clearance making its way over the other side of the penalty area towards Chambers. The Arsenal defender failed to deal with it and O’Grady finished sweetly inside Wojciech Szczesny’s near post. Game on, we thought.
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