Arsenal 0-Chelsea 3

By: Martin | November 29th, 2009

Well, that was a devastating loss. And it’s hard to deny that Chelsea didn’t deserve to win. But as far as I’m concerned, the 3-0 scoreline definitely flattered Chelsea, and I don’t buy that it was “men against boys” out there. We had 12 shots to Chelsea’s 14; we had 56% of the possession; more corner kicks than Chelsea; and most of the match action took place in Chelsea’s half of the field. To say we got dominated just isn’t accurate.

What is accurate is to say that a lot of the club’s failings over the last couple years reared their ugly head. Despite dominating possession and playing the match in Chelsea’s half, we were utterly unable to break down Chelsea in the last 1/3. When we did get the ball into a good spot, it seemed like our players were unwilling or unable to take a shot or put another man through on goal. Our set pieces and free kicks were completely unthreatening. And in key moments we lacked composure in the back. On the flipside, Chelsea showed us their best side–making the necessary plays at the back, and coming up with a couple of clinical finishes to win the day.

For most of the first half, the match was pretty evenly matched, with Arsenal looking like the most likely team to break through. But then, in the 41st minute, Arshavin just missed intercepting a ball into Ca$hley, but when it got through, Sagna didn’t close him down, Cole put in an absolute beauty of a cross into the 6 yard box, and Gallas, instead of clearing it, let it go through. I guess he thought Almunia was going to be able to get to it first and control it. But Drogba put a run into the box and just managed to get onto the end of it and put it into the top corner of the net. Then, just a few minutes later, Ca$hley again got the ball down the left, put another good cross into the box, but Vermaelen deflected the ball into the net off his thigh. And just like that, it was 2-0 Chelsea going into the half.

The story of the second half was much the same–Arsenal dominated possession, but couldn’t break down Chelsea’s back line. We did put the ball into the back of the net shortly after the half, but the goal was disallowed by the ref because Eduardo “fouled” Cech. Since it was against Chelsea, I thought I would channel my inner Chelsea fan in writing about the incident:

The ball came in from the right, and Eduardo popped it up towards the goal. Cech came out to get the ball. Before he could get to it, however, Eduardo got a foot to the ball, deflecting the ball off of Cech, and it fell directly into the path of Arshavin, who put it into the back of the net. So apparently there’s been a rule change–if Peter Cech is near the ball, or is trying to get to the ball, or is even looking at the ball in a way that might suggest that he may get to it, any player on the opposition team may not try to kick the ball, or it’s an automatic foul. For the life of me, I can’t understand how it can be a foul for a striker to go after a loose ball. Of course the keeper has to be protected if he actually has the ball, but when the ball is loose, doesn’t have any more of a right to the ball than any other player, and I don’t see how anyone could conclude anything other than a perfectly good goal was disallowed because of a bad call.

Woo. There it is. You know what? I kind of like this whole “blaming the referee” thing. It’s kind of cathartic to be able to blame an external bogeyman for all your ills instead of focusing on your own shortcomings. I could get used to this. No wonder Chelsea fans do this so much, I can see the appeal.

In all seriousness, it should have been a goal, but I’m not sure I buy Arsene Wenger’s complaint that the disallowed goal was a “turning point” in the match, seeing as how it would only have cut into Chelsea’s lead. And any rate, Chelsea may very well have complaints of their own about the referee when no penalty was awarded on Sagna’s tackle on Anelka in the box.

At any rate, the most frustrating thing about the second half was how whenever we got the ball into a dangerous position, red shirts always seemed to be drowned out by blue shirts in the box–there just didn’t seem to be enough aggressiveness and urgency on our side in trying to make up the deficit. And then in the 86th minute, Chelsea got a free kick outside the box, Drogba unleashed a lethal free kick just inside the post, Almunia couldn’t get to it, and that was it.

We couldn’t break down their backline, and we couldn’t stop Drogba. Chelsea was, as usual, lethal on set pieces. I think we really missed van Persie–we didn’t seem to have anyone consistently playing up front in the middle. Eduardo was drifting all over the place, and wasted what few opportunities he did have. It seemed like Cesc was the forwardmost player in the middle for many attempted attacks. If we don’t have someone who can actually fulfill that role, we need to rethink playing a 4-3-3.

On to the ratings:

Almunia 5.5. Has to bear part of the blame for both the second and third goals. When’s the last time Almunia made a difficult save?

Sagna 5.5. Almost gave away a penalty early by wrapping his arm around Anelka during a tackle, and it was really his responsibility to shut down Ca$hley today. He didn’t.

Traore 7.Man of the Match. Started slow, but grew better as the game went along. May turn into a quality Premiership left back yet.

Vermaelen 5.5 Probably his worst game in an Arsenal shirt, capped by the own goal. He’ll bounce back.

Gallas 6. Rough afternoon for him as well. Should have cleared Ca$hley’s cross on both the first and second goals, but decided to let the first one through and was unable to get to the second one. I’m still glad he played instead of Silvestre, though.

Denilson 5.5. He was largely invisible in the match, and failed to make much of an impression. In the 4-3-3, the midfielders are the heart of the formation’s success, since the 3 of them have to do battle with their 4 or 5 counterparts. When one of them has a game like this, success is virtually impossible.

Song 7. I actually thought he was pretty solid in his 45 minutes of action–he cut out most of Chelsea’s attacks through the middle and made his presence felt. I understand he was taken off at the half because he doesn’t offer much in the attack, but I still think Denilson would have been better to take off.

Cesc 6. Cesc is a world-class midfielder, but you wouldn’t have known it from watching him today. Was emphatically NOT the rudder of the Arsenal this afternoon.

Arshavin 6.5. Seemed up for it and was involved in almost every attack, but couldn’t find a way through and wasn’t given quite enough help to make any difference.

Nasri 5.5. As I’m going through the starting XI for these ratings, I just came upon Nasri’s name and thought to myself, “Wait–did he really start?” If I’m asking myself that, you didn’t make much of an impact.

Eduardo 5. Was absolutely a liability today. Wasteful in possession, ineffective in the finish. With the injuries, he’s been given a beautiful opportunity to prove himself as a world-class striker. What he’s actually done, unfortunately, is the exact opposite.

Walcott 6.5. He added some tempo, and really seemed to open up the field for Arsenal. But couldn’t find a way through.

Vela 5.5. Aside from a penalty claim, didn’t really offer anything.

Rosicky 6.5. Clearly was looking to get forward, and looking for a nifty pass through, but was unable to make anything happen.

And that’s that. Wenger didn’t wear a tie today, so no Wenger’s Tie rating today.

The big question now is where do we go from here? Even if we win our game in hand against Bolton, we’re still 8 points behind a superior Chelsea squad. You hate to give up so early in the season, but it would take a pretty miraculous sequence of events for us to win the league this season. I think it’s time to reshift our focus a bit, then. Our goal in the league probably becomes finishing 2nd or 3rd, to qualify directly for the group stages of the Champions League, and we try to win the Champions League and the FA Cup. In the latter, we got a tough draw for the 3rd round, having to play West Ham away.

We’ve got Manchester City away on Wednesday in the Carling Cup, which will be a good chance for the young kids to prove themselves against a top quality opponent. And then we’re home to Stoke next weekend, which will be a good chance to hopefully regroup, although Stoke is a tough, physical team who’ve shown over the past few seasons that they’re capable of beating one of the big clubs on their day. The coaches and players need to sit down, reflect, and realize we still have quite a bit to play for. They also need to realize that we’ve dropped from 2nd in the table to 4th, and we can’t fall into a malaise and mess around and drop points over the next few fixtures, because if we do we could easily find ourselves on the outside of the Champions League spots looking in at the midway point of the season.

I don’t think we were outplayed that badly, but Chelsea executed and we didn’t, and we didn’t deserve to win that game. And once again, November trips us up, through a combination of injuries picked up in b.s. international friendlies and a loss of focus when we could least afford to. But we can’t lose focus of the fact that this is still a team that, on our day, is capable of beating any other club in the world, and still have a very real chance of winning a trophy and having a very successful season.