Match Review: Chelsea 6 Arsenal 0 - Premier League 22.03.14

I’m not going to spend much of my time on this game. I’ve just wasted 90 mins watching the team I love get stuffed buy the chavs and quite frankly, I feel sick. We’ve been on the end of some thrashings in recent years; 8-2, 6-3, 5-1, but this is hands down the worst. The 8-2 was down to a poor transfer window and a ton of injuries, the 6-3 was naïvety and we at least scored three. The Liverpool result was horrible, but this takes the biscuit. Wenger’s 1000th game, for me, his worst.

Arsenal named an unchanged side from the win at Tottenham and were 1-0 down within six minutes. We committed everyone but the centre backs upfield Chelsea counter attacked and Eto’o finished. Gibbs the main culprit for being miles too far upfield and not sprinting to get back. We all know Arsenal are rubbish at learning lessons, so we kindly let them have another go at it. Schürlle finishing well this time, Gibbs well out of position again. Game over.

Things clearly weren’t going badly enough, so Chamberlain decided to bring an element of farce to what was already a debacle. Chelsea cut us open again, one shot was blocked and the ball fell to Hazard. His shot was going wide, but Chamberlain, who lost the ball in first place, dived and tipped the ball away with his hand. It didn’t seem like either of the officials had spotted it, but after the Chelsea players had time to convince him, the ref pointed to the spot. A red card was inevitable, but having guessed about the penalty, Marriner had to guess the culprit. He guessed wrong, sending off Gibbs, despite Chamberlain telling him he was the one who committed the offence. Too embarrassed to change his decision, Marriner sent Gibbs on his way. Hazard stepped up and tucked away the penalty.

Three goals down, a man sent off and the players already putting a performance to forget. Another disaster in a big game. Title hopes gone as quickly as they’d reappeared. De ja vu. It was hardly a surprise when Chelsea got in down the left AGAIN and Torres squared for Oscar to score.

Podolski had been sacrificed after the sending off, Vermaelen on at left back. Wenger made his final two subs at half time, bringing on Flamini and Jenkinson for Chamberlain and Koscielny. The Koscielny sub surely indicates an injury, which is terrible news. Gibbs will surely have his red card overturned, which should mean he’s available on Tuesday, but to lose Koscielny is another blow we just don’t need. Flamini’s introduction seemed to steady the ship and we actually didn’t play too badly, until we gave the ball away just outside our area. Rosicky the culprit this time and Oscar hit a weak shot which Szczesny basically pushed into his goal. It summed things up horribly really.

Five minutes later, Chelsea made it an extra humiliating day. Salah, who replaced Oscar, breached our offside trap with ease and he had a simple task to run through and make it 6-0. With twenty minutes left it’s a blessing it wasn't seven or eight. You know things have gone badly when that’s the case. For a club like ours, it’s beyond embarrassing. Plenty of mid table teams have gone there and not lost like that, some have even come away with a point. It’s not even a freak result, it’s the third time it’s happened this season. The title is a pipe dream now, top four must be our focus. Everton and Sp*rs are still dangerous and we have a few tricky fixtures to come, one of which is against Everton. We’re favourites for the top four and the FA Cup. Secure both and it’s been a fairly good season. Fail to secure top four and we’ve gone backwards. Fail to secure the FA Cup and it’ll have been more of the same.

Teams

Chelsea (4-2-3-1)
Cech, Ivanovic, Terry, Cahill, Azpillicueta, Matic, Luiz (Mikel 72’), Schürlle, Oscar (Salah 67’), Hazard, Eto’o (Torres 10’)
Subs
Schwarzer, Lampard, Kalas, Torres, Mikel, Salah, Ba

Arsenal (4-2-3-1)
Szczesny, Sagna, Koscielny (Jenkinson 45’), Mertesacker, Gibbs (R), Arteta, Chamberlain (Flamini 45’), Rosicky (Y), Cazorla, Podolski (Vermaelen 24’), Giroud
Subs
Fabianski, Jenkinson, Vermaelen, Kallstrom, Flamini, Gnabry, Sanogo

Player Ratings

Szczesny - 2/10 - Rubbish
Sagna - 3/10 - Meh
Koscielny - 3/10 - Meh
Mertesacker - 3/10 - Meh
Gibbs - 1/10 - 14 minutes of pure crap, maybe for the best he was sent off
Arteta - 3/10 - Meh
Chamberlain - 1/10 - 45 minutes of pure crap that should have been 14
Rosicky - 4/10 - Ok…ish
Cazorla - 2/10 - Rubbish
Podolski - 2/10 - 20 minutes of rubbish
Giroud - 3/10 - Meh
Subs
Vermaelen - 4/10 - Okish
Jenkinson - 4/10 - Okish
Flamini - 4/10 - Okish

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