If only Arsenal had got the luck in March… Report and playa ratings
Chelsea 1 Arsenal 2
Playa Ratings
1 - Almunia, 6
3 - Sagna, 8
20 - Djourou, 7.5
10 - Gallas, 8
22 - Clichy, 7.5
4 - Cesc, 7
17 - Song, 7
15 - Denilson, 6
8 - Nasri, 7
25 - Adebayor, 7
11 - van Persie, 9
26 - Bendtner, 7
HAD November’s luck switched with March’s misfortune, we would probably be Champions.
Eight months ago, three Chelsea players strayed offside in the build-up to the home side’s equaliser at the Bridge. No flag arrived.
Yesterday Robin Van Persie was even more glaringly ahead of play. Again no flag arrived. Not so long ago a Jose Mourinho side won 2-0 at Highbury and were widely considered to have outclassed the home side. At 0-0 Van Persie had seen a perfectly good goal wrongly chalked out and Henry had hit a post.
Margins in football are tiny.
If ever there was a game to silence the Van Persie doubters, surely this was it.
I’ve argued countless times that his greatest asset is that he is not on the same wavelength as his teammates.
Yesterday, while his colleagues collectively toiled, Van Persie cracked one totally out of the blue past Cech with his right foot of all things.
Until that point we had laboured dually under the memory of recent nightmares and the fact that two of our midfielders are out of their depth. Would 4-5-1 have been better with Van Persie left? Who knows.
The only thing I hold against Song is that he could look a little more sprightly and against Denilson that the tendency to dive that first reared it’s ahead at the Emirates on Wednesday was repeated embarrassingly yesterday.
Other than that, they seem to be decent guys going about their work reasonably well. It’s just that at the moment, neither looks good enough. It means our defenders are denied viable outlets and Cesc finds himself drowning in a sea of ordinariness.
But we must have been doing something right, because other than the stupid goal we gave away and an incorrect early offside, Chelsea were hardly coming within inches of scoring. Nor can I remember cursing once over a cock-up from either Gallas or Djourou.
Credit to Arsene, by the way, for being brave and going with Djourou. We looked better for it. Does this now make Kolo fourth choice?
Talking of Kolo, Jamie Redknapp broached the complete lack of attention paid to his loss of form during the inevitable Gallas discussion pre-game. It was a point I made only last week.
It was that moment of brilliance from Van Persie (helped by the lino) that managed to galvanise the team. When we had been second to every ball, suddenly we were first to them.
When John Terry arrived second and studs showing in a challenge with Sagna, it was possibly only the fact our right-back is hard as fuck that saved Terry a red card. Sagna got up as if nothing had happened and you can only imagine how tough it must be to play against a guy who is never riled, never reacts and never claims injury. Top player.
Before long another arrived and again it was Van Persie, this time shooting across Cech from an Adebayor knock down. The Dutchman has suffered his fair share of abuse from the terraces this season.
Seven goals in ten league starts would suggest it has been misplaced at times.
Then it was a question of seeing whether we could dig in. We were right to go for a third goal and the stick Gallas got from the commentators for going up for a set piece late on was absurd.
Dig in we did. Chelsea’s shooting may have been wayward, but like United’s efforts of a few weeks ago, the defence must be given some credit. As it was, Gallas and Djourou never cracked. Sagna was like a rock and the Clich rediscovered the confidence that had perhaps deserted him of late.
I should say at this stage Song made an important contribution halting their attacks. The very few free-kicks we gave away were a sign of how focused we were.
Credit too to Wenger. There were no silly subs that spoilt our shape. Adebayor was tiring and was replaced like for like. We finished with three attacking players on the pitch, meaning we always had outlets.
Against Spurs, we finished with just one.
It is technically true that victories over United and Chelsea are more valuable than those over Stoke and Fulham because they have the added advantage of pegging back the leaders.
But we all know that it is only when we can find the consistency to beat a team such as Wigan next week that we will be able to properly improve.
Nonetheless, the very early signs of a Cesc captaincy have been positive for all concerned.
1 December 2008 at 9:48 am
I’d like to whack those moaning about offside across the face. Oh how I’d love that.
Drogba only has what, like 5 clear offside goals against Arsenal in the last 4 years! Never heard the media even acknowledge that fact.
1 December 2008 at 9:56 am
Taking into consideration how many first class players we are missing,such as Kolo,Rosicky,Wallcot,to mention the least,this is a very massive victory,Hope we can keep the good work on Saturday.Good luck Gooners
1 December 2008 at 9:56 am
Great performance by the b(l)ack four, and especially Cesc and Denilson as well for their workrate. In the first half they covered they miles Song didnt run (how much? 5 kilometers in total?) and really closed down Ballack, Deco et al… Was I the only one who saw Clichy telling Song to get his s… toghether at the beginning of the second half? After that he improved, but in the first half it was basically like playing 10 against eleven. Sorry Goodplaya, but I was severely impressed with Denilson’s workrate, covering both right wing and central midfield. No wonder he was completely exhausted when Bendtner found him at the end. But great work ethic from the rest of the team - and brilliance from Robin!
1 December 2008 at 10:00 am
John Major, Ashley Cole, Peter Bonetti, Jose Mourinho, Glenn Hoddle, Ray Wilkins, Tore Andre Flo, Gianfranco Zola, Ron “Chopper” Harris, Nicolas Anelka, David Webb, Roman Abramovitch, Peter Osgood, Ron Hutchinson, Avram Grant, David Mellor, Edddie McReadie, Didier Drogba, Ruud Gullit, Mickey Droy… Your boys got one hell of a beating!
1 December 2008 at 10:10 am
Song has ZERO pace. Once you beat him you’re gone.
1 December 2008 at 10:17 am
Is it possible to get the stats on how far he actually ran?
1 December 2008 at 10:43 am
Switched the telly off at halftime, and made myself a whisky sour & a sandwich. Came back at 65, and saw a totally DIFFERENT TEAM.
There were no heart-in-the-mouth moments when the Chavs had the ball. I really HAVE to make more Whisky Sours everytime we play. Somebody please mail me the fixture schedule.
As was pointed out in The Guardian MBM, are we “small game bottlers?” Surely there’s enough talent to win the big matches, but is there enough Motivation & Discipline to pull thru the small ones?
Pl write a column about this soon, Goodplaya.
1 December 2008 at 11:06 am
Let’s not get too carried away yet but we should still enjoy the moment as it was truly a great victory and we did get Chelsea at a good time when they didn’t have Joe Cole and especially the hated Drogba who always scores against us. They didn’t play well at all and we played a little better than in the Kiev game. We thoroughly deserve the victory but needless to say this all means nothing unless we string a set of wins together starting with Wigan on Saturday. Van Persie had a great game and if he can stay healthy, he could be key for us for the rest of the season. I thought Djourou had a great game and Sagna was the true man of the match. Plenty to savour for now but again, we need some consistency so that this all means something.
1 December 2008 at 11:23 am
*Sigh* I was thinking exactly the same thing about last season’s match at the bridge GP. What 3 points from that game could have meant. Ah well, woulda coulda shoulda.
Other than that I’m not going to dwell on the negatives (which to be fair are few, it’s not Denilson’s fault he’s not a right winger, and it’s not Song’s fault he’s not Vieira at least he gave his all) because that was bloody fantastic. I at least have that grudging respect for United, I loathe and detest Chelsea to the core. They represent everything a football club should not be and to beat them on their own patch made the day, it hasn’t happened for a while.
Karma’s a bitch isn’t it? RVP gets his “goal” against Chel$ki a few seasons after scoring a perfectly good one. But he is just outrageously gifted with skill, I felt the winner was an even better finish. What he could do in an uninterrupted campaign, hopefully we’ll see it one season. For now he’s repaid some of what he owes us for Stoke. Let’s see more of the same against Wigan.
1 December 2008 at 2:11 pm
Many are too harsh on Denilson. In central mid field of a 442 or 451 he has been superb this season, and the stats fully back that up.
Premiership: All Midfielders: Denilson 3rd in Total Passes, 2nd in Pass accuracy (86%), Successful Tackles 45 (7th) with a tackle success rate of 75%, Attempts Created 21 (21st), Shots on Target 10 (13th), Assists 4 (4th), Goals 2 (12th), Fouls won 25 (9th) (Note that Ronaldo has won 29 fouls (7th).
Tackling is particularly noteworthy, no other midfielder in the top 4 comes close (none in the top 20). All the others in the top 10 tacklers are from the low end of the table. In all these categories he is performing better than Obi Mikel, Alonso, Mascherano and Gareth Barry.
In the Champions League his form is even more impressive: Midfielders: Total Passes (4th), Pass accuracy (3rd), Successful tackles 17 (3rd) with success rate of 85%, Fouls won 13 (10th). Remember these are the top 32 teams in Europe.
So how does he compare to Flamini? Well in the passing he is similar in pass accuracy (both 86%) but puts in more effort around the pitch. Average passes per game in the Premiership over last year for Flamini was 57, Denilson is averaging 71 even though he is sometimes played on the left or right of midfield. And the key figure as far as I am concerned? Flamini was not even in the top 10 of tacklers last year.
In AW’s words Denilson is a “very efficient player”, he once described him as a cross between Gilberto and Rosicky. He is a classical box to box player with a fantastic engine. He is very comfortable on the ball, controls things well in an often congested mid field and almost always lays on the right pass. His tackling and covering is under-rated but when you look at the stats notice that no one is near to his work rate. Even playing mostly on the right wing last night he put in 4 successful tackles, only Clichy of all on the pitch did more (6). It is also noticeable that he knows how to “take” a foul. He is the most fouled Arsenal player, often in important places of the pitch (fouled 25 times compared to Ronaldo of 29 times this year). He was right to go down in the box last night under Cole’s foul - but made the mistake of delaying his fall!
Wenger took a good long look at Denilson in the last few games of last season, and in the pre-season, and I think concluded that there was no one of interest that would outshine him in this team and with its tactics. I agree with him. And the guy (who has been Brazil captain for every age team from 14 to 19) is 20 years old. There are many reasons for the inconsistency in the team this year, but Denilson is not one of them.
1 December 2008 at 2:17 pm
Great performance after went a 2-1.
However Denilson will never make an Arsenal player as long as h has a hole in his bum.
Work rate counts for nothing without an end product.
Thought Gallas was still playing for Chelsea. Well done Johan. I really believe in this kid. Hopefully he will now be a regular. If thats the case then we will not need to buy a CB in Jan.
Almunia is a good goalie but he will never be a great goalie.
Why? Cause his decision making is poor and that has cost us in 2 final and one CL quarter final.
Remember he punched the ball out for a corner rather than catc the ball or leave it for the fullback to deal with. From the corner Hooferball scored. Beaten on his near post by Drogba in the cc final.
I thought Song looked more comfortable in a midfield 4, but creates nothing. Better option than Denilson in the middle. Hopefully we will strengthen there in Jan. Or maybe play Kolo there.
Nasari blows hot and cold. I don’t think that he is a natural winger. I think his ideal position is behind the front 2, bit he can do a job there Maybe play him on the right and Gibbs on the left.
Thought the front 2 worked well together and worked hard.
1 December 2008 at 2:21 pm
jph.
You can quote all the stats you like.
This season we have already lost 5 and shipped 19 goals.
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