Stoke City was long a bogey team for Arsenal after it was promoted to the Premier League in 2008. Its bullish, direct style contrasted dramatically—and effectively—with Arsenal's silky football.
But there seemed to be a change over the past few years. As Stoke established itself in the top tier of English football and looked to play a more aesthetically pleasing style by signing former Barcelona and Real Madrid players, the results against Arsenal actually deteriorated.
Since the start of 2015, Stoke has managed to take just one point from five games against Arsenal. But on Saturday, new signing Jesé scored during his debut at the bet365 Stadium, and Wenger's team of superstars had no reply.
It was a painful return to north London for Arsenal, made even worse by Stoke's local police force hitting a zinger on social media. An Arsenal fan with the Twitter handle @TheIwobiEffect tagged the town's police force and wrote that he "would like to report a robbery," suggesting the Gunners should have won.
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Almost 12 hours later, a reply came from the police account. It read: "apologies for the delay in replying. We've been busy looking for a missing person, surname Ozil. Have you seen him? #Banter"
apologies for the delay in replying. We've been busy looking for a missing person, surname Ozil. Have you seen him? #Banter
— Stoke Police (@Policingstoke) August 20, 2017
The reply referred to Mesut Özil, the German midfielder Arsenal signed from Real Madrid in 2013 for £42.4 million (about $55 million), who's been criticized for failing to have an impact on big games.
The post got more than 10,000 likes and 8,000 retweets.
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