Chelsea extend unbeaten run in EPL, scrape past ten-man Gunners
“He’s done it again,” chanted the Chelsea fans. “Diego Costa, he’s done it again.” And he had. And so too had Arsenal, as they lost 1-0 to the Blues. In this most unpredictable of Premier League seasons, this was an oddly familiar story: Costa upsetting Arsenal, provoking a red card and Arsene Wenger’s side again slipping up just as the way seems to clear for a tilt at the league title.
Away draws at Liverpool and Stoke would have looked worthy points gained in the light of a victory over Chelsea but as it is, Arsenal has now gone three games without a win and trails Leicester City at the top of the table by three points. Even if it’s still assumed that Claudio Ranieri’s side will falter eventually, the fact that Arsenal is level with Manchester City and only two clear of Tottenham, rivals who might have been burned off, is cause for concern.
It was a game of symbolic as well as actual value. Arsenal hadn’t beaten Chelsea in eight league meetings, scoring only two goals in those games. It was when Roman Abramovich invested in Chelsea in 2003 that Arsenal found itself toppled as the main challenger to Manchester United, playing a different financial game to the real elite. More recently, as Abramovich has retrenched and Arsenal has begun to reap the benefits of the new stadium, the financial parameters have changed, but Chelsea has remained the sort of pragmatic, physically imposing side against which Arsenal struggles. The challenge in that sense was as much mental as anything else.
Arsenal’s psychological make-up is complex. There are few sides better at chasing a lost cause, few sides worse at seizing an opportunity. While it’s true that Per Mertesacker’s 18th-minute red card tipped the game decisively Chelsea’s way, it wasn’t born of nothing. Chelsea had already looked the more composed, more threatening side, with Cesc Fabregas dictating from a position just in front of Nemanja Matic and Mikel John Obi. Willian had very nearly put the away side ahead on the quarter-hour, unable quite to get the necessary purchase on his shot after his initial attempt from Cesar Azpilicueta’s cross was blocked.
But it was what happened three minutes later that was decisive, Willian’s pass finding Costa who was tripped by Mertesacker – who mystifyingly glanced at the linesman as he began to make the tackle. The red card for a professional foul was inevitable, the seventh Arsenal have collected against Chelsea in the Premier League, more than against anybody else.
Wenger responded by removing Olivier Giroud for the center-back Gabriel. He had to bring on another defender, but Giroud was clearly surprised at being the man removed. Perhaps Wenger felt the pace of Theo Walcott, elevated to captain on the tenth anniversary of his signing, was a greater threat in what was always likely to become an isolated striker role, or perhaps the decision was rooted in the fact that Giroud had been an injury doubt before the game.
Whatever the reason, within five minutes Gabriel had lost Costa as he darted across the near post to steer in a Branislav Ivanovic cross, his eight league goal of the season and his sixth in seven games in all competitions since Jose Mourinho left the club. It seemed indicative of Arsenal’s oddly diffident attitude that Nacho Monreal half-turned his back as he went to close down the cross.
That odd lack of decisiveness was apparent again just before half-time as Mathieu Flamini, whose own positioning for the goal was far from beyond reproach, found space in the box but, rather than attacking a cross with his head, wagged an ineffective leg at the ball. It’s almost as though there’s some sort of neurosis about Arsenal that prevents it from really committing when the pressure is on, as though it’s easier to accept failure than risk giving everything and still lose.
Monreal cleared an Ivanovic header off the line, and Fabregas probably should have had a penalty when he was bundled over by Laurent Koscielny, but for the most part Chelsea was content to sit on its lead. There were flurries of Arsenal pressure, particularly late on, but it never quite created the clear-cut opportunity to force an equalizer. That there was such anxiety at the back for Chelsea – and late on as it squandered three opportunities to break in the final minutes – against ten men perhaps suggested just how low confidence is there, but it didn’t matter. Chelsea held on to complete the double over Arsenal. Wenger’s side remains just three points off the top but its title credentials have once again been called into serious doubt.
