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Morning all.
Scrappy, bitty and bad tempered at times, the words of Alan Smith to describe the game between Arsenal and Chelsea yesterday lunchtime. He perhaps should have added comical too because Chris Kavanagh was so inconsistent, one can only laugh. Wesley Fofana escaped a booking on three separate occasions before Kavanagh finally booked him for delaying an Arsenal restart. The only consistency from him was his inconsistency.
I thought we started well, creating a few opportunities to take the lead but in the end, it was a set piece which did the damage to Chelsea. An Odegaard corner, a header from Merino which looped up and over Sanchez’s head and into the net. Our midfielder come striker nearly doubled our lead in the second half with a sweetly struck volley but Sanchez got a strong hand to the shot to just about keep the ball from crossing the line.
Chelsea’s best opportunity came from Crystal Tips Cucurella which Raya looked to gather with ease but in a flash, the ball had spun out of his clutches before drifting just wide of the far post. Phew…
As said, we started brightly, creating a number of opportunities to score. Timber, Trossard, Martinelli and Rice saw chances go high, wide or straight at their keeper and then it looked like it would be another one of days. Kavanagh waved away a penalty shout against Cucurella, with ball ending up at the feet of Rice but his shot went high. Very high. But then came our corner and with it came our goal.
Chelsea had a bit of a good spell as the game approached halftime but to be honest, they never really looked like scoring.
We might have only scored the one goal but what was refreshing was watching us being more competitive. We started fast, we battled hard for every ball, we were aggressive and we played like a team who wanted to win the game. We gave Chelsea nothing, well, almost nothing. We more than deserved our three points by playing better than our opponents for most of the game.
1-0 to The Arsenal will have pleased George Graham who was sitting in the stands.
With any hope of winning the league long gone, staying ahead of the clubs behind us is all Mikel Arteta and his players can try to do. Chelsea is one of those clubs sat just a few points behind us so yesterday’s win was important.
But, there’s another level or three this team needs to go up in the final third if Arsenal are to stand a chance of troubling Real Madrid in a few weeks time. We have a great defence, a strong midfield but then after that, well, it all gets a bit predictable. Thank heavens for Mikel Merino eh. A header he probably intended as a knock on for someone else, ended up in the net. That’s what can happen though, we just don’t try it enough. A bit like shooting really, after a few opportunities tried and missed, it felt like we stopped trying.
It was good to see both Kai Havertz and Bukayo Saka watching on from the sidelines but sadly, only one of the two is anywhere near to returning to play which is Bukayo. Our next fixture is at home against Fulham and fingers crossed, his name will be amongst the substitutes.
Now we go into the international break, although not many of our players will get a break. I just hope they return as fit and healthy as they leave.
Catch up in the comments.