Arsenal 2-2 Chelsea: 16 conclusions

Daniel Storey

* We shall come onto the details in due course, but can we all take a few moments to savour the supreme quality of that football match. Many of the games between the Premier League’s top six this season have been difficult to stomach – thanks, Mr Mourinho – but this was an enthralling evening’s entertainment.

It is incredibly unusual for a match to improve gradually as the minutes pass, ending in the fantastic cacophony of noise that you might usually associate with a classical music concert, but it is wonderful when it does occur. That is exactly what happened at the Emirates on Wednesday, the final whistle causing a collective exhalation of breath as we began to unpack what had just occurred.

It’s also crucial that both Arsenal and Chelsea had been given reasonably gentle festive fixture schedules, with at least three days between their games. After a sluggish Christmas programme with fatigued and rested players, Arsene Wenger and Antonio Conte were able to name their strongest sides. It is no coincidence that the entertainment immediately went up a notch.

 

* This is what makes Arsenal so bloody frustrating. Having sat through their performances away at West Brom and West Ham, when they played in a fog that suffocated them of any attacking spark, it was wonderful to see them play with intensity against a top-four rival.

But why now and not then? It gives the impression that this team – and certain individuals within the team – are picking and choosing when they turn in stellar performances. That in turn hints at a lack of discipline and a hardwired complacency that runs like a vein through the club from the top down.

This was much, much better from Arsenal, but you’ll forgive me for not lavishing them with praise. They have now won just two of their last eight league games, playing five of the current bottom eight in that run, and if Tottenham beat West Ham on Thursday they will be four points behind fifth place.

Had they played like this against West Brom, West Ham, Southampton, Watford and Stoke, this would have been a valuable point. As it is, it only consolidates the expectation that they will finish the season in sixth. After a summer during which Wenger, Stan Kroenke and Ivan Gazidis all spoke of challenging for the league title, that represents (another) significant failure.

 

* They should also have lost the game, although the draw was a fitting result to a wonderful contest. Alvaro Morata (more on him later) spurned three golden opportunities to score, and Davide Zappacosta hit the bar. Two of those chances came after Hector Bellerin’s stoppage-time equaliser as Arsenal tried once again to snatch defeat from the jaws of a draw.

Conte will be peeved by Chelsea’s concession of a lead, albeit also proud of their response to falling behind. He now has one win in six games vs Wenger’s Arsenal, a significant blind spot given his rampant success since arriving in England.

 

* Arsenal really do have a defensive problem, and not one that will be immediately solved by the signing of Konstantinos Mavropanos from PAS Giannina. A back three of Shkodran Mustafi, Rob Holding and Calum Chambers was the tenth different central defensive combination in 22 Premier League games this season.

The names made you wince. Mustafi has struggled for much of his Arsenal career, while Holding has been ignored more often than not under Wenger despite impressing when give odd chances. Chambers was starting his sixth league game for Arsenal since March 2015. Did anybody really think he would still be here by now?

 

* If Chambers is the weakest member of that back three, Wenger might not think so. Arsenal’s manager spent part of his pre-match preparation praising the 22-year-old for his improvement since going out on loan to Middlesbrough.

Comedy is all about timing, and Chambers had a calamitous first half that was only saved by Chelsea’s inefficiencies in front of goal. Twice he allowed the ball to bounce when he should have cleared, and the first of those caused a disastrous confusion with his goalkeeper. In Petr Cech’s defence, he was in the right.

This is one of the problems with constantly changing personnel, because Arsenal defended as if an individual mistake was coming and as if communication was lacking.

 

* We need to talk about Alvaro Morata. The striker Chelsea failed to sign this summer has been coming in for plenty of criticism himself, but it’s easy to wonder what the reaction would have been on social media (and from Gary Neville) had Romelu Lukaku produced a performance like Morata’s.

It started with a one-on-one miss, the Spaniard never comfortable as he bore down on goal and shanked his shot well wide of Cech’s left-hand post. Yet Morata’s build-up play was also poor, with passes going astray and possession lost through sluggishness.

Morata has been superb in the air this season, particularly when crosses are supplied by Cesar Azpilicueta. But it has almost reached the stage when stopping Azpilicueta moving forward with the ball stops Morata from scoring. It’s now only two league goals since September.

 

* Morata was not the only guilty party in the first half, and Chelsea could have scored two or three times. Marcos Alonso fired a free-kick over the bar when he would have expected to hit the target, but Chelsea’s other golden chance came from a move that showcased almost all of their strengths.

It started when Mesut Ozil stepped forward with the ball but was tackled cleanly and superbly by N’Golo Kante. If that was his party trick, Eden Hazard was about to demonstrate his. The Belgian danced towards Chelsea’s box and then across the penalty area, pursued by three Arsenal defenders.

Just as we expected him to shoot, Hazard produced a backheel that nobody else in the stadium thought possible. The vision and awareness to roll the ball perfectly into Cesc Fabregas’ path left you open-mouthed, similar to that famous Guti assist for Real Madrid (I urge you to seek it out). Again, the only thing missing was the finish.

 

* Yet if that creates a picture of Chelsea dominance, that would be an inaccurate representation. For this was a raucous, flowing football match with chances at both ends in the first half. If Chelsea missed their chances, Thibaut Courtois kept out Arsenal’s. He had to be at his very best to do so.

The save from Alexis Sanchez was remarkable, the Belgian given half a second to react to the Chilean’s stabbed shot yet somehow able to palm it onto the post. If Courtois relied on good fortune when seeing the ball roll across the goal line and rebound off the other post, that luck was deserved. The goalkeeper celebrated as if he had saved a penalty.

 

* The principal reason for the watchable nature of the game was the head-to-head battle between Ozil and Tiemoue Bakayoko. What we initially suspected to be a 3-4-3 Arsenal formation was actually more of a 3-5-2, with Sanchez and Alexandre Lacazette matching Chelsea’s shape of Hazard in behind Morata. That left Ozil in a roaming role.

It suits him perfectly, and anyone who assumed that Ozil would down tools this season owes him an apology. You might assume that giving such a luxury player licence to drift would lead to him staying high up the pitch and avoiding his defensive duties, but Ozil actually dropped very deep to pick up the ball. That allows him to dribble forward and play the type of passes that can hurt the opposition.

Yet Ozil wasn’t supposed to have this much freedom. Conte picked Bakayoko in midfield to guard against the Ozil threat, but he was too often guilty of dereliction of duty. Chelsea’s manager was regularly seen screaming at his central midfielder to stay closer to Ozil, but those words had little obvious effect. On commentary, Gary Neville’s anger rose at Bakayoko’s inability to stay the right side of his man.

It is difficult to work Bakayoko out. He is excellent when moving forward with the ball into opposition territory, but that should surely be the bare minimum we expect of an expert central midfielder bought from the French champions for a high price. Bakayoko’s defensive work is too often lacking and his passing is occasionally sloppy. They were certainly the lasting images of his performance on Wednesday.

 

* I have remained unconvinced that Jack Wilshere will make England’s World Cup squad, but Sarah Winterburn is about to start doing the dance that can only mean that I’m admitting she was right. Wilshere has now started six straight league games for Arsenal, and regular starts will mean an England call-up. Gareth Southgate kinda told him as much.

One thing that Wilshere’s game has never had is goals. He had reached the age of 26 but scored only seven in his Premier League career, but number eight came as a belated birthday present.

The rule is that goalkeepers should not be beaten at their near post, but it has exceptions. The sheer pace of Wilshere’s shot made it impossible for Courtois to react. Its weirdness – Wilshere was half-sliding as he struck the ball – generated the power, and the accuracy was perfect.

 

* The question is whether Wilshere should have even been on the pitch, but I’m siding with him – just. There is no doubt that he made the most of the outstretched Chelsea leg, and may even have manufactured contact in the challenge, but in super-slow motion these falls always look worse.

I’m happy with that not being awarded as a foul but not being viewed as a dive. Only Wilshere will truly know whether he was trying to con Anthony Taylor.

 

* So that’s the one controversial moment of the game sorte… oh for goodness sake. If Arsenal’s opening goal divided opinion, so too did Chelsea’s equaliser.

After donning my tin hat, I’m sticking with my original view that the penalty was the correct call. I do believe that Hazard made the most of the contact, but also think that players do that multiple times in every game in the country. How many times have you seen a player stay down only to pop back up on their feet a minute later?

What is certainly true is that Bellerin kicked Hazard. It was not malicious, but he tried to kick the ball and kicked his opponent. Anywhere else on the pitch it is a free-kick, and therefore it was a penalty. It does not matter if you think that Bellerin ‘just grazed’ Hazard (which isn’t accurate anyway); it’s a foul.

The frustrating element here are the double standards amongst managers and supporters. Had that not been awarded as a penalty to Arsenal in the opposite box, fans would have been up in arms and Wenger would have been incensed. And yet we still had Twitter polls with titles like ‘Should Anthony Taylor be banned from refereeing in the Premier League for a while’. Grow up; nobody is out to get you.

After the game, Wenger became a parody of himself with his reaction. He first said that his team got a “very, very bad decision”, then blamed the English media for not making enough of the refereeing mistakes in Swansea vs Tottenham the previous night and said that referees (paid far less than him) “get away” with it in England.

Wenger was presumably furious about the penalty awarded against his side, which he saw perfectly. When he was then asked about the incident involving Wilshere, his response was as old as time: “I didn’t see it, honestly.” Referee Taylor can take comfort in the knowledge that Wenger’s selective vision would make him a dreadful official.

 

* Anyway, onto the important issue at hand: When is Cech going to actually save a penalty? Arsenal would be as well to have Herbert Chapman’s ghost or Wenger’s warm coat in goal, so useless is Arsenal’s goalkeeper at guessing the way a spot-kick will go.

Hazard followed the lead of Jay Rodriguez of kicking the ball down the middle of the goal and watching Cech move to one side. It’s now 15 without a save.

 

* Alonso is quickly becoming one of the most useful players in the Premier League. Not only is he an excellent free-kick taker and crosser and therefore a damn useful attacking wing-back, if a little ill-disciplined, but Alonso’s goal record since joining Chelsea is outrageous. He has 12 in the league since the beginning of last season.

That goal record is helped by Alonso’s role in Chelsea’s team. His stamina allows him to roam far from his usual position, but so too does Chelsea’s three-man central defensive line and Kante’s energy. With Hazard usually drifting left from his central position, Alonso can actually swap positions and end up in a No. 10 role.

He turned up as a poacher to give Chelsea their lead. The suspicion is that Chelsea’s Spanish left-back is a better finisher than their Spanish striker.

 

* If Morata disappointed with his finishing, so too did Lacazette. The Frenchman’s hold-up play was actually superb against Chelsea, but he will be judged on his finishing and goal record. Olivier Giroud has scored four times in 360 league minutes, while Lacazette has managed eight in 1,526 minutes. So far, this is not the 25-goals-a-season striker Arsenal thought they had signed.

It does feel as though Lacazette only needs fine tuning, however. There were no embarrassing misses like Morata’s, but Arsenal’s centre forward is not taking the half-chances that can be the difference between good and great. Unlike Kane, very few of his shots are finding the corner of the net and thus leaving a goalkeeper without a reasonable chance of making a save.

 

* I wanted to leave the last word for Ainsley Maitland-Niles, who played a part in Arsenal conceding their second goal yet was still probably the game’s best outfield player.

At the age of 20, Maitland-Niles has been thrust into Arsenal’s first team in an unfamiliar position, replaced a popular new signing, been picked in a team struggling for consistency and alongside a regularly changing cast of centre-backs. Given all that, his performances have been superb.

The most obvious thing about Maitland-Niles is just how little fear there is in his game, despite these being his first steps into Premier League life. Opposition wingers will quickly pick up on his weaknesses, but he has stayed strong and held his own.

Credit too to Wenger for spotting the potential in his player in this wing-back role. I’m happy to concede that I was worried about the psychological impact of Maitland-Niles being exposed as a defender, but he has adapted quickly. He is by no means perfect yet, but nor should he be expected to be. Consistent excellence can only come in time.

Daniel Storey