Arteta Eze 'aura' after stunning derby hat-trick
Arsenal left it late to snatch Eberechi Eze from under the nose of its London rival Tottenham Hotspur, signing the forward from Crystal Palace on transfer deadline day.
On Sunday, the 27 year-old boyhood Arsenal fan paid back a lump of that 60 million pounds ($79 million) fee with a stunning hat-trick in a 4-1 rout of Tottenham in his first north London derby.
Eze's appetite for the big stage was apparent with a memorable winner for Palace in last season's FA Cup final against Manchester City.
Prior to the match he had only scored one Premier League goal since arriving at The Emirates, but he chose the perfect day to make his biggest statement in an Arsenal shirt.
The England international struck either side of halftime with clinical finishes from the edge of the penalty area and rounded off a brilliant display with another unerring shot past Guglielmo Vicario in the 76th minute.
Arsenal was not short of forward options even before Eze's arrival but after his treble sent his team six points clear, manager Mikel Arteta suggested Eze could become a key part of his attacking jigsaw.
"Things happen for a reason. And after the international duty, he had two days off, and after one day he wanted to train, and he wanted to improve," Arteta said.
"He wanted to do extra practice and he was asking me questions about this and that. When a player has such a talent, and his desire is at that level, then these things happen.
"And he fully deserves it. I'm so happy for him, because since the day that he came, he brought something else to the team. So it's a joy, it's an aura that this team needed."
After goals for England against Latvia and Serbia in October and November, Eze looks assured of a place in Thomas Tuchel's World Cup squad. And if he scales the heights he showed against Tottenham on a regular basis he may go to North America as a Premier League title winner.
"Hopefully it will give him a lot of confidence, to him and the team, that at any moment he can win us a game," Arteta said. "He has such a quality and capacity to finish actions in different ways that we need to play him very close to the box.
"We need to play to his qualities. The more he spends time there, the better for the team."
Arsenal had gone into the international break with the bitter taste of dropping two points away to Sunderland after conceding a last-gasp equaliser.
But the thrashing of Tottenham, stretching Arsenal's unbeaten league run to nine games, was the perfect response.
With champion Liverpool's form in free fall and Manchester City also losing, Arsenal looks firm favourite to deliver its first Premier League title since 2003-2004.
Not that Arteta is getting ahead of himself.
"We wanted to get back to earning that momentum again and the London derby and today's performance. It's a good start," Arteta said. "In this league (a six-point lead) is not much.
"We are doing really well. We've been really consistent and that's it."
