Arsenal (0) – (0) Chelsea
The Emirates Stadium, London
Barclays Premier League
It was a frustrating night for Arsenal fans, as Arsenal struggled to break down a stubborn Chelsea side.
We knew Chelsea would be compact, solid and try and hit us on the break. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the answers and in the end, we were lucky probably not to lose.
Frank Lampard rattled the bar in the first half, and Chelsea carved out a decent chance before the break but Willian’s shot was tame.
It took 85 minutes for Arsenal to register a shot on target, and when it came Olivier Giroud couldn’t convert the chance. He also had another golden opportunity to score about 5 minutes before that, but sliced the ball well wide.
In games like this, when it’s tight you need your strikers to take these chances. He had two decent scoring chances and missed both. The top teams have that one player (Suarez, Aguero, Van Persie, Lukaku, etc.) who can score when your team needs it.
At a time when teams are giving us tougher games, Olivier Giroud has shown he isn’t good enough. Against Everton, he had chances to win the game and the same happened tonight – but unfortunately the same happened again and he didn’t take them.
He adds a lot to the team but his finishing isn’t good enough. If we had Suarez or Aguero up front, they would have buried those chances. They were difficult chances but ones you would expect the top players to score. Even Podolski would have made a better effort of the left-footed volley.
As it stands, we couldn’t break down a stubborn Chelsea team who had the better attacking possession and chances. You know how Jose Mourinho is going to setup his team which is not to lose, and they did exactly that. Arsenal needed to step it up a gear but it never came, and I don’t understand why Podolski didn’t come on for Giroud for the last 20 minutes or so. It would have given us that little extra boost we were lacking in the final minutes.
Mike Dean lived up to his reputation of being a complete cunt and made some shocking decisions. He gave Mikel a yellow card for almost breaking Mikel Arteta’s leg, he failed to give a penalty when Walcott was clearly fouled in the box, and overall had no control over the game.
He obviously has a massive bias against Arsenal and he didn’t disappoint tonight. We all know that we’ve only won one game with Mike Dean officiating in the last few seasons, and tonight was another game where we were never going to get the breaks.
Overall, a frustrating night made worse by poor refereeing and the fact we failed to perform how we can do. Too many players were below par and that played into Chelsea’s hands. Tomas Rosicky was our best player, and our back four were good, but apart from that we were poor and didn’t deserve the three points.