Here’s Daniel Taylor’s match report from Stamford Bridge
Well, the last two games between these two have been a glorified friendly and that tedious affair at the Emirates. This one was anything but, providing boiled urine all over the shop. Well, mainly just on the Arsenal side, but there were enough other incidents and so forth to keep even the most jaded observer entertained.
So, now all you have to do is brace yourself for a week of Diego Costa discussion. God speed. Cheers for reading, everyone.
Full-time: Chelsea 2-0 Arsenal
Peeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
90 mins + 5: Hazard jinks and turns down the left, looking to keep the ball and run down some time, and is placed on his behind by Ramsey.
90 mins + 4: There will be discussion aplenty obviously after this game, but it’s worth noting that Chelsea have been the better team here, even when it was 11 v 11.
90 mins + 3: Ben Simmons, who I assume is an Arsenal fan, writes: “This result is as embarrassing as the 6-0 a couple of years back. The same lack of discipline manifested in a different way. Who’s the Arsenal captain today? I genuinely have no idea.”
90 mins +2: Fabregas is replaced by John Obi Mikel.
90 mins + 1: Remy tries to find room for a shot in the area, just about manages to dig one out but it’s blocked, it falls to Hazard who belts a shot towards goal which hits Chambers and goes in. Not sure whether that was heading in anyway, quite possibly not.
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GOAL! Chelsea 2-0 Arsenal (Hazard/Chambers OG 90+1)
And that would be that.
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88 mins: Thomas Shepherd writes: “Why does it feel like Mourinho would rather win like this - gamesmanship, control, set piece goal, plenty of angst; than through a sparkling five goal evisceration?”
87 mins: Hazard takes the free kick but it flicks the top of the wall and goes behind.
86 mins: Hazard exchanges passes with Ramires on the edge of the box, then is fouled by Koscielny. Who must be treading a fine line himself. Could there be another red card? Might they have enough dismissed to have the game called off? Well, no, probably not.
84 mins: ...but it’s headed away at the near post.
83 mins: Arsenal are still plugging away. Giroud wins a free kick on the left...
81 mins: And Mourinho recognises that, taking Costa off in your classic ‘sub him before he’s sent off’ move, bringing on Loic Remy.
80 mins: Costa is at it again, barging completely pointlessly into Oxlade-Chamberlain. It’ll be a minor miracle if he stays on. Or refereeing incompetence. Your call.
RED CARD - Cazorla sent off!
Blimey. Another one goes, as Cazorla gets a second yellow card for a foul on Fabregas. Studs slightly up, challenge slightly mistimed, into Fabregas’ ankle. No real complaints about that one.
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77 mins: Oxlade-Chamberlain looks for a clipped cross to Giroud at the back stick, but Zouma does well to get up and beat the new man to the header.
75 mins: Those Arsenal changes - Giroud is on for Ozil, while Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain replaces Sanchez, which is a bit of a surprise.
74 mins: Costa cuts in from the left, tries to make room for a shot, but under pressure from Bellerin goes down just inside the box. However, that looked like a dive - what’s that, three/four yellow offences for him now?
72 mins: Don’t panic Arsenal fans, everything’s going to be OK - Olivier Giroud is about to come on.
71 mins: Chambers gets a booking for a block challenge on Hazard that is slightly, very slightly mistimed. A foul, sure, but a booking?
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69 mins: Sub for Chelsea - Oscar off, Ramires on. Looks like the new man will play in midfield and Fabregas will be pushed on.
68 mins: Walcott runs at the Chelsea defence through the middle, and tries to thread the pass for Ramsey, but it isn’t quite threaded enough. Chelsea then counter, the ball breaks to Pedro on the edge of the box but he tries a curling shot, when there were passes on left and right.
@NickMiller79 if this were ice hockey, Arsenal would have sent in its goon by now and Costa would be eating his meals from a straw.
— Norbert Knapke (@nknapke) September 19, 2015
66 mins: Oscar dances around Cazorla as if he isn’t there in the box, then cuts it back towards Costa, but he can’t control or shoot. Speaking of whom...
“Is no one else just, you know, bored by Costa?” asks Niall Mullen. “Watching him is like a long car journey made worse by a fight about who’s fault it was you got lost.”
65 mins: Chelsea attack down the right and Hazard finds himself in some space in the box, and he shoots across goal but wide of the far post. Oscar did in fact get booked for that challenge on 63 minutes, by the way.
64 mins: Walcott gets the ball on the left corner of the box and tries to curl an effort into the far top corner, but it goes just wide.
63 mins: Koscielny is lucky to get away with a foul on Fabregas on the edge of the Arsenal box, then he is the victim of a similar foul that Oscar is fortunate to escape censure for.
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61 mins: The Arsenal fans and Costa have now made up and they’re no longer shouting mean things at him. Just kidding, of course they are continuing to refer to him by the rudest word.
59 mins: And Arsenal should be level. A long ball over the top causes the sort of confusion you’d expect in a Sunday league team from Chelsea. It drops for Sanchez, under some pressure from Zouma and Cahill, but he can’t get enough on the shot and sends it wide via his studs.
57 mins: Tough to see Chelsea relinquishing control of this now. Some nice work on the left tees up Hazard for a shot, which he takes and delivers a hand-stinger which Cech pushes out.
56 mins: Very much this, from Mark Judd: “Pity Duncan Ferguson isn’t still playing, he and Costa on opposite sides would be worth a watch. My money would be on ‘Big Dunc.’”
55 mins: Weird that Petr Cech, who had previously never conceded a goal, has let in another one here. The camera cut to the man Zouma was ostensibly in the side instead of after that goal...
John Terry clapping like an Oscar nominee for the winner.
— Darren Richman (@darrenrichman) September 19, 2015
53 mins: Chelsea win a free kick in the left channel which Fabregas curls very nicely to the back stick, but there’s absolutely nobody marking Zouma and he takes advantage by nodding home.
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GOAL! Chelsea 1-0 Arsenal (Zouma 53)
And there you go.
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51 mins: Just a quick reminder that there’s nothing in the rules about a player raising his hands = violent conduct/a red card. Which isn’t to say Costa shouldn’t be off by now.
50 mins: Sanchez takes the shot himself, but it flicks the top of the wall and goes behind for a corner. Chelsea counter through Costa, who is eventually dispossessed to the amusement of the Arsenal fans. He stares at them, a faint smile playing upon his lips.
49 mins: Ivanovic finally gets a yellow card, for a number of fouls, as he bundles over Sanchez on the edge of the D. Free kick in a dangerous position for Arsenal, here.
47 mins: “Sorry to burst Bobby McDonald’s bubble,” says Adam Large, carrying a massive pin, “but most rational Arsenal fans will be more angry with Mike Dean than with Costa. Hopefully Dean watched some video at halftime; if he saw replays, we might see Costa a very different refereeing philosophy this half.”
46 mins: And we’re away again. “COSTA - YOU’RE A CEE” exclaim the Arsenal fans.
The teams are out again. A change for Arsenal, as Calum Chambers comes on for Coquelin, which is an interesting one. Ramsey or even Ozil would have been more obvious candidates to come off.
And Robert McDonald offers: “Please keep the seething hatred from Arsenal supporters coming. Maybe other Chelsea supporters are tired of Costa’s act, but quite honestly, the angry, moralizing pontification by other supporters sustains my very being.”
And for a little balance, here’s a Mr Peadar Kearney: “I LOVE DIEGO COSTA SO MUCH.”
Rob Lowery writes, with some flamboyance but little punctuation: “Part of me wishes that Gabriel decked Costa rather than kick like a still belligerent sibling after a parental rebuke and an even bigger part me hopes that the whole fiasco was spurred on by a Belle Époque nationalism and Corinthian revulsion at Costa’s international rugby project player style nationality conversion.”
“Frustrating immaturity,” writes Adam Large, “but between the dive (and card-waving) earlier in the match, the deliberate hands to Koscielny’s face (twice), and knocking Gabriel down to start that mess, no refereeing team with the collective intelligence of a cocker spaniel could have left Costa on that pitch.”
Bit extreme this, from JR: “Costa is not even a footballer. He is a professional wrestler. He committed two red card offences there on Koscielny before disgracefully goading Gabriel. He needs to be banned. Permanently, preferably.”
You could argue he committed a couple of yellow card offences, and his protests, complains and niggling are undignified. If quite funny. But nothing more than that.
Half-time: Chelsea 0-0 Arsenal
Peeeeeeeeeeep.
45 mins +2: It’s no wonder Chelsea fans love Costa. That was clearly a flick by Gabriel, and thus a second yellow card in the space of a few minutes, but the Chelsea man had goaded him for about three minutes with consistent niggle and so forth. The Arsenal bench are quite, quite cross.
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RED CARD TO GABRIEL!
In the follow up scrap, Gabriel seems to aim a little kick at Costa. The striker was undeniably the instigator of all that, but that doesn’t excuse any retaliation, obviously.
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45 mins: Yellow cards for both Costa and Gabriel, from the follow-up fight. Costa continues to chunter, though.
44 mins: Fight! A fight! Costa and Koscielny have a bit of a grapple, in which the Chelsea man takes a couple of ineffectual swings at his opponent. Then off the ball Costa seems to sort of chest bump Koscielny to the floor. There’s jostling aplenty and Mike Dean has some sorting out to do.
43 mins: Chelsea clear the corner and counter, which Ivanovic joins but when the attack breaks down Arsenal counter-counter. Ozil runs down the left, crosses to the far post where Ramsey dithers and can’t get the shot in.
42 mins: Chelsea protest that they should have been given a free-kick after Sanchez clumsily - but unintentionally - tumbles into Matic, but no dice there and Arsenal win a corner.
39 mins: And at the other end of the pitch, Zouma produces an absolutely brilliant challenge on Walcott as the Arsenal man looks to skips away and behind the defence on about halfway. Even more impressive a recovery given that Zouma initially slipped over there.
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38 mins: Another effort for Pedro, who finds some room about 25 yards from goal but he slices it rather and the ball sails wide.
37 mins: Zouma brings the ball out of defence and lauches a shot from miles out, that has pace aplenty but was always rising, and indeed rises o’er the bar.
36 mins: The Arsenal fans are singing something about Mourinho. It doesn’t seem to be awfully complimentary.
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33 mins: Hazard runs down the left, tries to go past Gabriel in the area, the pair have a brief wrestle but then the defender basically just shoves him over. No penalty is given though. Mourinho does that ‘laughing at the very state of things, how can the world possibly be always against me like this’ thing.
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32 mins: Best chance of the game for Chelsea. Fabregas is given some space and clips a lovely ball over the top for Pedro, who times his run beautifully and is in on goal, but can’t control the ball enough to get a shot away.
31 mins: The first booking of the day, and it’s deserved, as Cazorla offers the most cynical of trips on Pedro as the Chelsea man looks to get away down the right.
29 mins: Walcott gets the ball in a bit of space on the left side of the box, opens up his body and tries a guided shot into the far corner, but it’s too close to the keeper and Begovic saves rather easily.
28 mins: Ivanovic goes through the back of Sanchez, and gets what looks very much like a final warning from the ref. Mourinho emerges from his dugout and points at his arm, which might be a message to Ivanovic to act responsibly, like what a captain might.
27 mins: “Good morning to you from California, and good afternoon to you back home,” writes Barry Bryan. “I hope you don’t mind me complaining for a moment but NBC, in their footballing wisdom, have been gracing us this season with not two but three commentators for their match of the week - with Lee Dixon and Graeme le Saux our ex-footballers. It’s bad and dumb and weird and its five in the morning and I have no one to vent about it but you and the dog. Also, Lee Dixon is a very grumpy man.”
We feel your pain, Barry - BT have Michael Owen and Glenn Hoddle. Although Rio Ferdinand is in the studio, and he’s quite good.
26 mins: ...which Cech comes for, misses but it curls out at the far post anyway.
25 mins: Chelsea keep the ball for about a minute, pushing it around relatively harmlessly outside the box. It’s just like watching Manchester United. They eventually get a corner, though.
24 mins: Costa finds a bit of room on the edge of the box, slightly to the left and shoots, but he doesn’t get all of it and Cech drops to make a relatively elementary save.
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23 mins: Fabregas spreads it to Ivanovic on the right, but his low cross is blocked and cleared at the near post. Still, Chelsea look more threatening at the moment.
22 mins: Coquelin’s back on, but not convincingly.
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20 mins: Coquelin goes down in the centre circle, and Chelsea are basically bullied into kicking the ball out of play. Doesn’t look that great for Coquelin, mind - he landed badly on his knee, I think. Still, good job Wenger bought an alternative in that position in the summer.
19 mins: Fabregas plays what is almost an absolutely delightful cross from deep on the right, looking for Pedro at the back stick, but Bellerin is there to clear. Not convincingly, but he does get it away.
18 mins: Chelsea offer some bright play in the area. Some neat back and forths between Oscar, Hazard and Costa force a corner, from which nothing useful results.
17 mins: Walcott and Ivanovic chase a ball on the left and, you know what, the latter wins it. In fact, he’s looked much more assured so far in this game. Maybe that essentially meaningless bit of cloth around his arm actually does have some meaning after all.
15 mins: Oscar fizzes a ball into the box and to Costa, but Monreal does well to nip across and dispossess him. He’s been excellent for about a year now, has the Arsenal left-back.
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14 mins: Cazorla plays a ball down the left looking for Monreal, but the Spaniard lifts his left foot high to control it, not successfully.
12 mins: Walcott is almost away on the right but Cahill stops him with a fine challenge. On the other flank, Sanchez this time does manage to get room to shoot, but he drags his effort well wide of the post.
11 mins: Sanchez tries to cut in from the left and make some space for a shot, but Oscar comes in with an exceptional, tough tackle. Still an underrated part of Oscar’s game, that. Maybe it’s because he’s Brazilian?
9 mins: Arsenal looking very neat outside the box but can’t really fashion a shooting chance. Just like old times.
8 mins: Sanchez barrels his way down the left and looks to have outstripped Ivanovic, so the big defender knocks him over. Could be a theme, that.
6 mins: Fabregas gets a bit more space than Wenger would probably like him to have about 30 yards out, he advances and takes the shot, but it’s not particularly powerful and straight at Cech, who saves with some ease.
5 mins: Ivanovic looks in some bother. Not sure what the problem is but he’s leaning over like a man who’s eaten a ropey Nando’s.
4 mins: Ramsey plays a delightful ball down the right channel that sets Walcott away behind the defence, but Begovic comes out to both narrow the angle and put the wee man off, and while Walcott takes it round the keeper it runs out of play.
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3 mins: Chelsea counter with Costa, but he falls under the most subtle of encouragement from Coquelin. The Spain forward requests the referee offers a yellow card, but Mike Dean, he say no.
2 mins: Some neat footwork by Aaron Ramsey wins a corner on the left. The ball comes over and makes it out to the Welshman on the edge of the box, he strikes it left-footed but it’s blocked on the edge of the six-yard box.
1 min: We’re off. Costa is charging around like a man possessed/a walking yellow card already.
Not at all, actually.
Well sort of.
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Arsenal will kick us off. It’s sunny in London. Not only did they shake hands, but Jose and Arsene kissed with tongues, by the way.
The teams are in the tunnel. Mourinho is sitting in the dugout. It would appear to be on.
Preview? Preview! Have some thoughts from Paul Doyle in our ‘10 things to look out for this weekend’:
1) Wenger looks for repeat performance
Eight weeks ago Arsène Wenger finally got his first win over José Mourinho and he enjoyed it so much that he jeopardised his Champions League chances in a bid to repeat it this weekend. Wenger rested several players for the trip to Dinamo Zagreb and found that he couldn’t count on his squad as much as he had hoped. He could still salvage some vindication, however, if Arsenal win at Stamford Bridge on Saturday. Petr Cech will return to his old stomping ground and the performances of Mathieu Debuchy and Kieran Gibbs in Croatia should ensure that Héctor Béllerin and Nacho Monreal start as well. Francis Coquelin has got to come back and Theo Walcott should start in place of the slower and deflated Olivier Giroud. Chelsea also made changes in mid-week but for different reasons. It will be interesting to see how many of Wednesday night’s starters retain their place for the visit of Arsenal. Ruben Loftus-Cheek did enough to suggest he would be a better bet than Nemanja Matic at the moment, but Loïc Rémy did not seize his opportunity to displace Diego Costa and Kurt Zouma looked shaky at times, meaning John Terry could return, although Kurt Zouma would be a sounder safeguard against Walcott’s pace. Similarly, Baba Rahman should keep his place because Branislav Ivanovic could do without facing a side with Arsenal’s speed.
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Nothing really to do with this game, but some pre-match reading for you. Here’s Donald McRae’s interview with California’s most relaxed man, Steven Gerrard.
But not even Gerrard could keep playing for ever in the red of Liverpool. As a footballer, it tore a chunk out of him to leave – but the human benefits are obvious. “A lot of people have noticed how different I am in LA,” Gerrard tells me. “Alex [his wife], my family and friends see a huge difference. It’s the first time Alex has seen me without that pressure I’ve lived with for so long – and the first time the kids [their daughters Lilly-Ella, Lexie and Lourdes] have seen me so free and easy. They’ve been surprised that, whatever they have asked me to do in LA, I’m like, ‘Yeah, come on, let’s do it.’ At home, if they want to go to the swimming baths or a fairground, it’s tough. You have to be selective about where you go, because there is so much attention on me.” He grins in relief. “Here, it’s the opposite. I’m a Z-lister. It’s perfect for me. I feel so much lighter.”
"Tactically, he's past it." https://t.co/tssn5JjZMa
— Andrew Thomas (@andi_thomas) September 19, 2015
“Do English punditocracy and football writers know that they come across as world class ding-dongs when analysing football games through Mourinho’s body language and potential and real handshakes?” asks Sasu Laaksonen. They quite possibly do, Sasu, but they think it creates theatre. And perhaps it does.
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Des Kelly, Fleet Street’s smoothest man who now has a telly gig with a microphone and everything, asks Mourinho about his team:
“John is...what you like to call a tactical, technical [change]. I try to predict what the opponent will be, and we decided to go with Zouma and Gary.”
Presumably he’s talking about Walcott’s pace up top, but that doesn’t really explain why it’s Cahill over Terry. Has the old boy been that bad this season?
“Hello Nick,” begins Kári Tulinius in a polite fashion. “As an Arsenal fan, I usually look forward to games against Chelsea like I look forward to dental surgery. However, this time around I’m moderately hopeful, especially seeing Ivanovic in defence. Poor Branislav has looked all season like he just wants to go curl up in bed with a cup of tea. I wonder what he did that makes Mourinho want to torture him by having him play week in, week out.”
Who do you reckon will be the key man? Your MBMer reckons Gabriel might just be, or at least his to-do with Diego Costa will be pretty good. Arsene Wenger reckons it’s the man betwixt the sticks for his boys, though:
Arsène Wenger hopes the Petr Cech factor will have an influence on the opposition as Arsenal head to an assignment they have found so troublesome in recent years at Chelsea.
“You know you have to score the perfect goal in front of him,” said Wenger, who wonders whether the combination of the goalkeeper’s aura and the friendship he had with his former team-mates at Stamford Bridge can have an effect on the Chelsea attack, and that it may be one of the fine margins that can decide games of this intensity.
The people on the telly are analysing Jose Mourinho’s body language in the tunnel and speculating whether he was looking to find Arsene Wenger’s hand to shake it.
Come armageddon, come.
So. Then. Now. Interesting. We sort of assumed that Kurt Zouma would be in the team for Chelsea, but instead of Gary Cahill, rather than John Terry. The conspiracy theorists will be furiously ransacking their dignity over this one - or are they indeed conspiracy theorists? Is there something to the conspiracy theories? Have John and Jose finally come to the end of their beautiful relationship?
Team news
Chelsea
Begovic; Ivanovic (c), Zouma, Cahill, Azpilicueta; Matic, Fabregas; Pedro, Oscar, Hazard; Diego Costa. Subs: Blackman, Terry, Mikel, Ramires, Loftus-Cheek, Falcao, Remy.
Arsenal
Cech; Bellerin, Gabriel, Koscielny, Monreal; Coquelin, Cazorla; Ramsey, Ozil, Sanchez; Walcott. Subs: Ospina, Debuchy, Gibbs, Chambers, Arteta, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Giroud.
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Oooooooohhhhh....
Sounds like John Terry not in Chelsea starting XI for Arsenal game today #CFC #AFC
— Daniel Taylor (@DTguardian) September 19, 2015
While we wait for the teams, here’s Diego Costa being terribly ‘umble:
I don’t know if I deserve the fantastic support that they give me every game,” the Spain forward told Viasat Sport in Sweden on the eve of the Arsenal game. “I often don’t do anything and the fans still chant my name. They treat me very well and I’m very grateful for that. As I said, I don’t know how much I deserve it.
“It’s very important for the players to feel the warmth and support of the fans. That can often win you games. If you see the fans are there supporting you, it’s like having an extra player. It creates a special feeling inside when the fans are supporting you and making lots of noise. I hope the fans will be full of passion [against Arsenal] and transmit that energy to us that we need at the moment. We need their support and energy.”
Preamble
You might remember the last time these two teams met in the league. Or, actually, you might not. Chelsea were quite happy with the point, and boy did they play like it, defending with an almost cartoonish stoutness, with no proper centre-forward, and they shut Arsenal down with a most ruthless efficiency. And it was eye-bleedingly dull, tedium of the first water, and not what us lot in the I Don’t Care Who Wins camp wanted, not that either team should give a single solitary stuff about that sort of thing.
It was all about control. As the first half of Manchester United v Liverpool last weekend demonstrated, control is rarely that diverting, and while Louis van Gaal preferred that opening 45 precisely because of this control, the rest of us had to slap ourselves around the face just to make sure we were still conscious and of this world.
The promising thing with this game is that there isn’t that same control in play here. Chelsea aren’t playing well, their usually drum-tight defence proving uncharacteristically charitable this season, while their attack has been about as potent as a blamanche. And then there’s Arsenal, whose start to the season has been so-so, but very, very Arsenal, inasmuch as they all got very excited and optimistic, seemingly on the basis that they’d bought a really good goalkeeper, but didn’t recruit anybody else at all. So it perhaps shouldn’t be a galloping shock that they were beaten by West Ham and Dinamo Zagreb, two teams that an outfit of Arsenal’s supposed qualities and ambitions should really make rather short work of.
Whatever the reasons for the two sides’ respective struggles thus far, the one thing we can be sure of is neither have managed to exert a great deal of control over proceedings so far. And when there’s no control, there’s the potential for all sorts of japes. All sorts of fun. Where there is no control, there is chaos, and we all enjoy chaos. Don’t we?
The thing about all this handshake stuff, and arguments on the touchline, and people prodding Arsene Wenger about his relationship or lack thereof with Jose Mourinho, is that conflict of this sort is entertaining. It’s not especially dignified, it’s undoubtedly petty, and of course it’s secondary to the actual football, but it is entertaining. And particularly when it involves Chelsea and Arsenal, two teams who aren’t awfully keen on each other (or, more specifically, can’t bloody stand each other), because that feeds into this enmity. And you can be pretty sure that the fans of both teams much prefer it where their bloke really, genuinely, properly dislikes the other bloke.
So. Potential for fun all round. Or it could be another awful festival of tedium. We shall see, friends, we shall see.
Kick-off: 12.45pm BST
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