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“It’s not over,” Mikel Arteta had said on Monday. It feels as if it is, Manchester City just too powerful, as evidenced by their 4-1 dismissal of Arsenal last Wednesday. But Arsenal cannot allow their Premier League title push to fizzle out. They owe it to themselves after the excellent season they have produced.
Arteta’s men kept up their side of the bargain, moving back to the top of the table, two points clear of City, having played two matches more, although to have failed to beat this Chelsea team would have been an abdication.
Frank Lampard’s visitors were almost implausibly bad in the first half. Then again, it has been all too believable for their supporters of late. Arsenal were 3-0 up after 34 minutes, the game over.
The outstanding Martin Ødegaard scored the first two, Gabriel Jesus added the third and the damage could have been heavier. Chelsea did muster a consolation, Noni Madueke scoring his first for the club, and what passed for a late push but it is now six losses out of six for Lampard – equalling the club’s worst sequence in 30 years. The blot for Arsenal was an injury to Gabriel Magalhães but the response to the hammering at City was there. It was their first win in five games.
The fighting talk from Arteta had been pronounced in the buildup. It has been for a while, his players knowing that he believed in them to stay alive in the title race. “I would pay a lot to be in this position at this moment next season,” he had added.
The Arsenal manager twisted with his starting XI, looking for some freshness post-City. It was Jakub Kiwior for Rob Holding, Jorginho for Thomas Partey, Leandro Trossard for Gabriel Martinelli. Arteta’s idea was to bring the hustle and control the tempo. To be ruthless.
What of Lampard? It was a wholesale re-working from him; back three out, back four in, a first start since last November for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang up front, an opportunity for Madueke on the right wing. The first-half would be a wholesale disaster.
Chelsea were nervy and chaotic, César Azpilicueta indebted to Kepa Arrizabalaga for an early bail-out, and it would get worse. Quickly. N’Golo Kanté had survived a swing-and-a-miss inside his own area, setting the wrong tone, when Azpilicueta tried to go back to his goalkeeper with a header. He got himself caught under the ball, unable to generate the power, leaving it short, allowing Granit Xhaka to steal in. Arrizabalaga’s save at close quarters was a good one.
Chelsea were pinned back during a traumatic period. They could not get out, errors marking their play. Nor could they close the spaces. It felt as though they were trying to make sense of the system.
Ødegaard had begun as if he meant business, demanding the ball and building the play in that driving style. Bukayo Saka had risen to extend Arrizabalaga with a towering header (yes, really) on 15 minutes, Chelsea’s marking slack, when Ødegaard popped up on the edge of the box and at the end of a move.
Gabriel Jesus went left to Xhaka and he screwed a low pass back. It was startling to see the lack of pressure on the ball from Chelsea. There was Ødegaard to lift a first-time shot which flew in off Arrizabalaga’s fingertips and the underside of the crossbar.
Ødegaard’s second was similar. Again, Arsenal built up the left and again Xhaka cut back for the run of Ødegaard. Thiago Silva was rooted, Raheem Sterling did not track and Arrizabalaga was exposed. Ødegaard’s finish from closer in was true. Thiago Silva and Ben Chilwell argued about who had been supposed to do what.
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Five minutes earlier, Chilwell had almost fashioned an equaliser out of nothing, Kanté’s pass in behind Saka springing him clear but Aaron Ramsdale made a fine save. Now Arsenal turned the screw, the third goal summing up the Chelsea defensive shambles.
Jesus was allowed to take down a deep Ben White cross beyond the far post and jab inside to Xhaka, who was crowded out. But nobody in blue could react when the ball broke for Jesus, who slammed home. There were four Chelsea players on the ground close to Jesus. Two of them – Arrizabalaga and Thiago Silva – beat it with their fists.
Aubameyang did not reappear for the second half, which was no surprise. He could get nothing going, crossing wires with Sterling on 17 minutes, showing awfully heavy control inside the area just before the interval. That was one of his nine touches. Four more were kick-offs.
The Arsenal fans revelled in the misfortune of their one-time favourite, just as they taunted Lampard. The “Super Frank” chants were from them, not the Chelsea enclosure.
Arsenal were straight back into it after the restart, Gabriel smuggling a header from a corner goalwards; Thiago Silva spirited it away off the line. Xhaka enjoyed himself and he beat Wesley Fofana too easily before working Arrizabalaga. Saka also whistled a shot wide.
Chelsea needed something, anything. And, after a comical sequence in which they got a four-on-two counterattack all wrong only for the backtracking red shirts to almost play them in not once but twice, they got it. It was a lovely ball in from Mateo Kovacic, left to right, catching out the static Oleksandr Zinchenko, and Madueke took a touch before squeezing it past Ramsdale.
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