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.