Arsenal overcame Everton with ease on Sunday afternoon and their German centre-back played his part.
Arsenal headed into their clash with Everton knowing the Toffees were desperate to get back to winning ways, but despite falling behind the Gunners ran out comfortable winners to inflict yet more pain on the hosts.
While Arsenal’s goal-scorers took the plaudits, it was another decent day for centre-back Per Mertesacker, who wore the captain’s armband for the visitors and led from the back throughout.
The German has not always been rated by neutrals, who cite his lack of pace as a major issue in the modern game, and yet he followed up his goal-scoring performance against Watford with another stellar showing at Goodison Park.
Mertesacker had to wait until last week to get his first Premier League appearance of the season, but the mini injury crises that struck at the Emirates Stadium has allowed the Arsenal veteran to return and it seems he is not ready to hang up his boots just yet.
He may not be a first-choice option when everyone it fit and available but Arsenal are clearly better off with him in their squad.
The Gunners’ win took them up to fifth in the table and they will be hoping to creep back into the top four in due course.
After the match we took to Twitter to see what Arsenal fans thought of Mertesacker’s latest outing and you can read a selection of what we found below:
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