Well that article I wrote about Arsenal being owed some luck against Chelsea today after the shocking decisions made by referee Mike Dean at Stamford Bridge did not exactly come true did it? In a way you have to accept that Per Mertesacker’s awful attempt at a last ditch tackle on Diego Costa was a red card offence but he could have been lenient if he wanted.
There was limited contact and Costa made a meal of it while you could also argue that Koscielny might have made up the ground. No such help from the officials for Arsenal though as our Chelsea curse kept going strong. Maybe we might have got into halftime on level terms as well but the goal came just after Gabriel had come on and he was not quite switched on.
We had some good chances in the first half as well, especially the one Mathieu Flamini fluffed with a bizarre type of kung fu kick effort. Giroud or almost anyone else would probably have scored but the big French striker was the one to go off because of Mertesacker’s sending off.
It just seemed that nothing was going our way. Even when Chelsea could have picked up a booking they got away with it. Now he’s lenient!
After an early spell of Chelsea pressure after the restart Arsenal started to really press for a goal but when we managed to spurn a number of chances in a few seconds of scrambled panic just after the hour mark it felt like it was going to be another one of those days.
Clattenburg had thre perfect opportunity to even up the numbers when Mikel put a hand in the face of Alexis Sanchez but he was determined not to do us any favours. Alexis had given us added threat and Wenger’s last throw of the dice was the Ox for Walcott and his pace and power almost had an istant impact.
We really started to turn the screw and just needed a little run of the ball to go our way. Another scramble in the box would not fall to an Arsenal player. Considering the circumstances a draw was the least we deserved but once again against the jammy lot from across London we got sod all for our efforts.
Yet another chance fell to the wrong man in Flamini, Koscielny was too honest bursting into the box, the Ox trod on the ball after beating his man and another good chance was gone. In the last minute of injury time even the bounce of the ball was helping Chelsea and that was that. Unbelievable.