Arsene Wenger did react to the away day troubles that Arsenal had against our big rivals last season, mas he needed to. But without Aaron Ramsey or Mikel Arteta available to play due to injury, it was Santi Cazorla who dropped back alongside Jack Wilshere and Mathieu Flamini to make our midfield more compact.
And it helped, as did the better determination showed by the whole Gunners side. But sometimes there is nothing you can do about a bit of brilliance and it was Eden Hazard’s dazzling run into the box that broke the Arsenal resistance, winning a penalty that he also converted after 27 minutes. Maybe the little Belgian left his leg a bit but you always see them given and Koscielny was perhaps lucky not to see red.
At least Arsenal resisted the temptaion to go all out for the equaliser, because getting to the break just one behind kept us in the game. We created some good opportunities as well but could not quite find the killer pass or nreak down the very strong Chelsea defence.
Somehow though, we needed to push for an equaliser while staying strong at the back, which led to more chances. Cazorla zipped a shot narrowly wide after the restart, while Szczesny produced a great point blank save to stop a Flamini own goal, before Wilshere wanted a penalty for a Fabregas handball.
With around 25 minutes to go, Chamberlain came on for Cazorla. It didn’t happen though as we could not break through their lines and had to shoot from range. And then we succumbed to the counter attack, with Fabregas finding Costa who sprung the offside trap and made it 2-0.
It was a much better showing from Arsenal, which bodes well for the rest of the season, but we still get no points and Chelsea increase their lead over us to nine points. Also, the narrow wins for Man United and Tottenham leaves Arsenal down in 7th. So all in all it has not been the best of days.
@gunnersaurus
Spot on dude…
Much respect.
Well done to the lads’ general performance today. Cons were Welbeck, who seemed a bit tired and Ozil who was easily outmuscled by the opposition. I particularly liked Sanchez, Flamini, Chambers, Gibbs and Koscienly(except from the penalty, which he could have avoided). Had the ref not been so tolerant, Chelsea would be playing with 10 players at most and we would have been granded a penalty for Fabregas’ handball. Also Sczezny should have made a quicker exit on Costa’s goal. The individual performance from Hazard and Chelsea’s solid tactics made the difference between the two sides today.
I agree with everything that you said, except for Koscielny’s penalty, he couldn’t avoid that! You ether stick a leg in or let him go. He was the last line of D. He would have put that away so easily if Kozza didn’t put a leg out. He probably didn’t expect Hazard to slice through so easily.
I would say congs to the lads at least there’s no one to use as a scape goat…we lost no one was that poor.
What ever we did to the english referees only God knows.
wenger is the real problem, we have a good squad bar defensive midfielder and may be a striker with a bag of tricks, skills, speed and clinical finishing but even everton managed to score 3past them.
We can’t transition the ball from defence to attack in time before all the opponents defenders get back.
wenger plays ozill in his prefered position , he scores n’ assists the next time he talks about deploying him on the wing and we draw. We make a convincing win when he uses proper wingers against galatasary and the next game he excludes the ox and we are attacking from only one wing and the center so easy to be defended.
WENGER SHOULD RETIRE AFTER THIS SEASON.
guys the truth is every team in the epl,every pundit and every media,blogger etc,knows aresnal’s weak link,and vulnerability.which is the fact that we have a slow centre back and no defensive midfielder.every body except wenger.(bitch).well the truth is arsenal will need a miracle to win the league under wenger(realisstically) cos the psycological disavantage of top 4 every year has eaten deep into the team,ther4 pushing above average will not be easy especially if wenger is still there cos he represents mediocrity.he is the father of mediocrity and he will always get top 4.nothing else.
truth is lower,and mid table teams, can not exploit arsenals weakness even if all teams in england and beyond knows this weakness cos most of them dont have the quailty in terms of personell to exploit it.the ones with very good tacticians and pretty good sides can pick a point(eg sothhampton,tottenham,everton etc).so overall arsenal will always pick enough points,just enough to make top 4 and thats about it.so guys WENGER HAS TO MOVE UPSTAIRS.WE NEED A MANAGER WHO IS IN TUNE WITH MODERN FOOTBALL TO TAKE OVER.WENGER IS STILL LIVING IN HIS FANTASY OF OLD.FOOTBALL HAS LONG EVOLVED
There has been much talk of Ozil not showing up in recent games. Some could say the same of Sanchez as he has lost his flash that he used to have at Barca. We have to keep in mind these players came from teams that are full of A-A+ players. Again, when Ozil plays for Germany he is surrounded by A+ players. It is easier to look like a star when you are surrounded by brilliance and it is easier to look lackluster when you are surrounded by mediocrity. If we were honest we would acknowledge we have only have a few A players, many B players and some C players. Good enough to place fourth, but definitely not good enough to compete for EPL and UEFA championships.
The teams at the top continually attract those solid players and transfer window after transfer window they fill their gaps. Arsenal has not done that for many years, thus we will not compete. Arsenal fans continue to grow frustrated by the lack of determination at the top. Our depth continues to big a real problem; look at the injury list week after week – Chelsea had one and we have about 6.
Lastly, our team looks very disjointed. We had a much higher possession percentage, but our ball control and connected passes in the final third of the field has been miserable…not just this game, but nearly all season. How many chances did we create that produced a solid shot on goal against Chelsea…very few. This is NOT the Arsenal of the past. How long will this continue?
Chelsea were bigger stronger and wanted the three points more than Arsenal. If Mr Wenger still thinks we can compete with the big boys he is deluded. Wenger is past his sell by date and the sooner the Board come to terms with this the better. Our players looked second rate compared to the Chelsea players. We had the chance to sign Costa but Wenger would not spend the money.
Welbeck was not in the game today Costa was that the difference in Quality.
I don’t think it was about the money with Costa. Wenger admitted that he wanted to sign Costa, but Chelsea had the deal pretty much wrapped up already. But still, Wenger should maybe have played his cards earlier.
Every one wants to get the good players- you have to move early to get them period- which Wenger has never done in his life!
There is so much BS in what you are saying that I dont even know where to start.
First I would like to say stop living in the past. the past is the past it is history. We live in the here and now.
But if you want let’s talk a bit of history Arsene won 3 EPL’s in the last 18 years, and no victory in the CL ever.
Mourinho has won the league with Porto,Chelssea, Inter and Real Madrid. He also won the CL with Porto and Inter.
There is a reason why all these teams want him to manage their teams and give him the funds to do so.
Arsene has the funds as well, for two seasons he failed to bring a DM and a Class striker. Mourinho brought in Matic and Costa in two windows, players we could have easily afforded to buy.
Stop hoping that Wenger has had enough of loosing to Mourinho, if 11 games was not enough 12 wont be either.
Wenger has given us many more lows than highs ( unless you consider sneaking into 4th place a high year after year)
I would rather have Mourinho as our manager than Wenger any day.