That was about as one-sided of a 2-1 match as you’ll ever see. Arsenal thoroughly outplayed Chelsea, shutting down their free-scoring attack, and playing dazzling attacking football of their own (at times). You’d really prefer it if the Gunners would put a couple more in the back of the net so we aren’t left sweating as the clock ticks down, but at this point, we really should be used to it. Arsenal saw out the match with their usual defensive control, keeping Chelsea out of dangerous areas and limiting
shots. As ever, David Raya handled the one decent chance the opponent’s fashioned, making a smart save — one he should be making — on Estevao and that was all she wrote. Chelsea have one win from their last sixteen matches against Arsenal and haven’t won in twelve tries.
Arsenal went behind inside two minutes. At the risk of sounding overly dismissive and minimizing a good strike from Morgan Rogers, it was a pretty lucky goal for Chelsea. It started from a free kick awarded for a soft foul. The ball bounced around from one side to another in / around the box. A “keep the ball alive header” fell quite kindly for Rogers. And he took it as well as a player possibly could at a screened David Raya who was leaning the opposite direction to see around the traffic. Of course it had to be Morgan Rogers, too. Sometimes it be like that.
The Gunners responded really well, though. They immediately took control of the match and had the ball in the back of the net within 10-15 minutes of conceding. Riccardo Calafiori’s would-be equalizer was correctly ruled out for an offside by Ezri Konsa, but Arsenal kept pressing.
They were rewarded in the 25th minute when Kai Havertz found the back of the net, as he often does against his former club. Find you someone who loves you as much as Kai Havertz loves scoring against Chelsea. The German winger was given far too much time and space to drive inside from the right wing. He saw Emi Martinez leaning / cheating to the far post and beat the Argentine keeper with a low shot to the near post. And speaking of things players often do against their former clubs, Emi Martinez got fingertips on the shot but couldn’t keep it out. I will never tire of watching him concede “should have done better” goals against Arsenal.
Chelsea nearly smashed-and-grabbed a halftime lead just before the whistle, but Pedro Neto’s shot hit the post. It probably served as a good reminder for the Arsenal defense of the threat that Chelsea could carry on the break, even if those counterattacking opportunities were mostly well-controlled by Arsenal’s midfield and ball-possession.
Sidenote: it annoys me when announcers don’t acknowledge that goalkeepers set themselves up to defend the goal and don’t care about shots onto the post. If a shot goes onto the post (and out), it hasn’t gone into the net, and that’s kind of the entire point of goalkeeping. I’d suggest that is precisely what David Raya did on the Pedro Neto chance at the end of the first half. I also think Gabriel’s pressure, even though he didn’t get the block, was important because it kept Neto from fully following through to shape his shot.
Arsenal scored a brilliant goal early in the second half that would prove enough to claim the points. Christos Tzolis, who had a much better game than last week against Aston Villa, played an excellent ball across the middle. Kai Havertz dummied it through, freezing the defenders, which helped make Martin Ødegaard even more wide open in the middle. (Can you be more wide open or are you just wide open?) The Arsenal skipper buried it, lifting it over and around a helpless Martinez.
The amount of time and space Martin Ødegaard had in the middle of the Chelsea box, virtually unmarked by any defender typifies the current state of the Blues. They’re a collection of players, with plenty of excellent attacking pieces mind you, but they aren’t a team. They don’t press in tandem. They don’t defend as a unit. Guys are running around trying to make plays, and in doing so, opening up all sorts of spaces in the formation.
Xabi Alonso has his work cut out for him. He’s a quality coach and probably can do it, in a vacuum. Whether he’ll be given enough time to straighten things out at a club that isn’t known for having patience with managers is an open question. And the individual vs. collective thing on display today gives me pause, too. Does Xabi Alonso have the secret sauce to get a reportedly headstrong group of players to row together when several other mangers couldn’t? The fact that he lost the power struggle against his players at Real Madrid doesn’t bode particularly well for him!
Back to today’s match. Arsenal generated more than 2.0 xG (2.1-2.35 is what I’ve seen) and held Chelsea to 0.35 xG. Coming into today’s match, the Blues had 5.97 xG from two matches played. The shot chart from today is textbook, from an Arsenal perspective. The Gunners took their shots from dangerous, central areas and limited the Blues to attempts from wide and distance.
Arsenal’s first three matches account for the first, third, and fourth lowest xGA so far this Premier League season. Our defense is really, really good. And we’re doing it without two first choice players in William Saliba and Jurrien Timber.
Martin Ødegaard was excellent. It’s night and day with him, which is apropos because most people think some of his struggles last season were due to having a newborn around that was keeping him from sleeping. Mikel Arteta mentioned that the skipper’s “personal life” settling down was helpful. The combination of Ødegaard and Havertz, with Tzolis adding technical quality and chance creation from the left wing, makes the attack so much better. The difference between Havertz / MØ and Gyokeres / Merino to close out the match was stark, and not in a good way. Bruno Guimaraes, who was an unused substitute, should help with the substitution / rotation, but Mikel Arteta needs to be acutely aware of maintaining the on-ball technical level throughout the match.
A few more quick thoughts:
- Gabriel played up to his O Monstro nickname. He was excellent. There was nothing in his accidental kick to Emi Martinez’s head early in the match. Both players were on the ground, scrambling for the ball in the goal mouth. That sort of thing happens. If the referee had really wanted to be harsh (silly), he could have shown a yellow.
- Cole Palmer, on the other hand, was lucky to stay on the pitch. Lee Dixon thought he “100%” should have been booked for whacking Myles Lewis-Skelly’s legs out from under him midway through the first half. He then was properly booked for pulling Kai Havertz down from behind to prevent a promising attack. He then kicked the ball away before the ensuing restart, something the referee booked Joao Pedro for doing earlier in the half.
- I am eagerly (not) looking forward to all the times this season that opposing players aren’t booked for waving an imaginary card at the referee now that we’ve had an Arsenal player (Tzolis) booked for it.
- Ezri Konsa had a mixed game in his first start. He turned his back on the play on Chelsea’s goal and badly misjudged a bouncing ball later in the first half. He also had a tremendous sliding tackle to bail out a bad Riccardo Calafiori giveaway and punish a loose touch from Morgan Rogers.
- Calafiori will continue to be an X-factor and difference-maker as long as he can stay fit and available. Piero Hincapie bringing tons of energy as a substitute should help. That becoming a regular pattern will be great for all involved.
- Morgan Rogers will fit right in at Chelsea. His frustration and temper was on full display late in the game when he got himself booked for yelling, remonstrating at, and shoving Declan Rice. To be fair, Rice did catch him running up the pitch — he clipped his heels cutting behind him. Whether / how much the Arsenal man knew about it is up to you. Clearly, Rogers felt a certain way about it.
- Bukayo Saka continues to run cold against Chelsea. He had two pretty good chances turned away — one a save Martinez should make and one a strong stop.
- Arsenal have scored six goals this season, all from open play. It took the club 10 PL matches to reach that mark last season.
With the caveat that Arsenal are a really, really good team that does this to plenty of opponents, I’m coming away from today’s match much less impressed by / worried about Chelsea. They’ve got a lot of work to do. Maybe they’ll put it together. They have enough talent to be towards the top of the table and they’ll be greatly helped by playing one match per week.
We’re excellent, folks. Three wins from three and we look better than we did down the stretch. It’s all about being able to maintain that level for longer than they did last season. You’d have made a lot of money betting on Hull City to be the last team to concede a Premier League goal this season.
