ALEXIX SANCHEZ AND MESUST OZIL BECAME ARSENAL WIZARD!!!!

 Arsenal have picked a better time -- OK, maybe that first Monaco game would have been more propitious but nobody's perfect -- to remind us why Arsenal crowbarred open Stan Kroenke's man purse to spend more than $110 million on your otherworldly talents. And now look where your glorious skills have taken the Gunners. They are inhaling the rarefied air of second place and giddily imagining ridiculous scenarios like, say, all those Chelsea-hating referees awarding 17 thoroughly undeserved penalties to the Blues' seven remaining opponents (including Arsenal on April 26), thus causing the presumptive champions to implode down the stretch and hand the title to a club that hasn't won it in a decade.

 A boy can dream, can't he? I mean, is Arsenal winning the league any more of a fantasy than Brendan Rodgers thinking Liverpool would qualify for next season's Champions League or Raheem Sterling believing he's worthy of wearing a Barcelona, Real Madrid or even an Arsenal shirt and that they'd pay $75 million for the honor? Arsenal brought the Steven Gerrard-less side crashing back to reality -- and the Europa League -- on Saturday with a 4-1 Emirates master class. 


For the Gunners, it was sweet payback for last season's 5-1 mauling at Anfield and their tenth win in their last 11 Premier League games. Far be it for me to gloat, but Arsenal are the best second-place league team not named Real Madrid. And for that, they can thank, to a large degree, Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez, who have rediscovered the elite-level dynamism that made them so feared when they first arrived at the club. Mark down the date April 4, 2015, as a watershed moment in Arsenal history: the day Ozil and Sanchez both scored in the same league game. It seems incredible that it hadn't happened before now, but even world-class players prove to be occasionally human, especially in a league where defenders like to introduce themselves with the kind of juddering, studs-up, hi-my-name-is-Ryan challenges that can make you think twice about running at them the next time. Ozil, in particular, appeared to be knocked off his silky game by the Prem's physicality, spending three months on the sidelines with knee ligament damage.

 Add to that a recent illness that caused him to miss the team's previous league game against Newcastle but reportedly didn't prevent him from partying with friends at a Berlin nightclub, and you can understand why Arsenal fans and pundits alike have questioned his commitment. Paul Scholes, Manchester United's former monosyllabic midfield linchpin turned garrulous TV commentator, went so far as to say Ozil has been "going through the motions" since joining Arsenal from Real Madrid last season. Ozil responded by bulking up during his rehab so he now resembles a twinkle-toed mini version of The Rock -- I'm thinking of trademarking The Pebble -- who is better equipped to ride tackles and make the occasional challenge himself. But it is still Ozil's technical qualities that cause you to marvel and they were on abundant display against Liverpool. First, he showed off his almost preternatural ability to deliver the killer pass with a sweeping crossfield ball to Aaron Ramsey that led to the opening goal. Then he scored one of his trademark did-you-see-that strikes, a perfectly hit free kick that curled around the wall and caught Simon Mignolet as flat-footed as Rodgers was earlier in the week when Sterling gave an unauthorized interview to the BBC and knocked out a spectacular Luis Suarez groveling-for-more-money impression. After all, how can a 20-year-old who has scored a whopping six goals in the Premier League this season possibly get by on a measly $150,000 per week? But Liverpool didn't lose at the Emirates because of Sterling's unsettled future. 










 They were obliterated because they had no defenders who could cope with Ozil and Sanchez's audacious talents. Who would ever have thought that Martin Skrtel's absence in the heart of Liverpool's rearguard -- the Slovakian was suspended for stamping on Manchester United's David De Gea in the closing seconds of Liverpool's 2-1 defeat -- would be as catastrophic as, well, as the Suarez-shaped hole in attack? It took Arsenal 37 minutes to shred a defense featuring Kolo Toure, a member of Arsenal's fabled Invincibles side, who, despite his lack of pace and craft, always gave everything he had for the Gunners. He did so again on Saturday only in a Liverpool uniform. The 34-year-old Ivorian endured a nightmarish afternoon as Arsenal broke open a taut contest with a stunning eight-minute first-half goal blitz. Ozil had been quietly probing from the opening whistle, but he and Sanchez exploded into life during that period of Arsenal dominance. Both players had been criticized this season for not imprinting their talents on big games, and while an under-strength Liverpool team is not to be confused with Chelsea or the two Manchesters, they harbor similarly grand ambitions. You could see how much the occasion meant to Ozil when he celebrated his free kick goal, running toward the rapturous Arsenal fans pumping his fist. It was his first Premier League goal since scoring on Feb.

 7 against Tottenham, and fourth overall in the league. Perhaps more importantly, Ozil has put to rest the growing fear among Arsenal supporters that their midfield isn't built to accommodate the contrasting styles of Ozil and Sanchez, the former effortlessly gliding from the flanks to the middle, the latter a blur of churning legs and high velocity venom often looking to exploit the same spaces. There were times before Ozil was injured where Arsenal's two most expensive toys would get in each other's way and the Gunners' attack would break down. When Ozil was out of the lineup, Sanchez had open swathes of the midfield in which to operate and he rampaged through them.