It was a Grand Slam Sunday to savour. In recent years, the ‘Big Four’ referred to the teams who had a chance of winning the title. However, this season, the most exciting title race in recent memory has given the term new life, and the two clashes on Sunday set up a mouth watering treat for football fans.
In the first encounter, Manchester United achieved an ideal result, picking up three points at Liverpool, and leapfrogging Arsenal to the top. There is bound to be pressure on a team playing catch up, more so when you are facing a team like Chelsea, desperate for points themselves.
Chelsea were missing two key players in Drogba and Essien, both who had been a thorn in our side in the past. Arsenal were only just coming out of an injury crisis themselves. Somehow, Cesc and Hleb managed to start, and the sight of Robin van Persie on the bench was reassuring.
The match panned out as expected, Arsenal were playing with verve, and Chelsea were trying to counter the masters of attacking football by staying organised and shielding the keeper. They succeeded in neutralising the home threat in the final third, and in fact, had the better chances in the first half. Thankfully, Almunia proved his worth by safely dealing with shots from Wright-Phillips and Shevchenko. Of course, Chelsea’s threat was severely stunted by the near-complete dominance of Clichy over SwP. On the opposite flank, Joe Cole was even less noticeable, being shepherded well by both Sagna and Eboue.
Though it was never really ‘dirty’ the game was full of hard tackles and late challenges. Yellow cards were being shown regularly to both sets of players. Terry enraged the Emirates faithful with a lunge at a grounded Fabregas. Minutes later, he ended up being at the receiving end when his attempt at hoofing a ball clear saw his foot crash into Eboue’s outstretched boot. Soon after, he was taken off the pitch, and it looks like he’ll be spending a spell on the sidelines. Pity.
As the first half progressed into injury time, it appeared that the goals, if any, would have to come after the break. Wenger would have been pondering the timing of van Persie’s introduction, and Avram Grant must have been wondering when Wenger would introduce van Persie, when suddenly, the script was ripped to bits in a moment of supreme irony.
A Fabregas corner from the left produced a flap of the arms from Cech, and Gallas held off Ben Haim to head the ball home. Set piece weakness, mistake from the keeper, captain heads the ball home. It could easily have been the story of our demise, but for a change, the plot favoured us. To add another dash of drama to the tale, the scorer was a former Chelsea player. One Mr. A. Cole must have been quite bemused.
After the break, Chelsea attempted to make their way back into the match, but could not find the quality to break down a determined Arsenal. The game began to deteriorate into a lacklustre affair as both teams inexplicably lost the ability to string a few passes together.
Soon, Chelsea switched to a 4-4-2 with Pizarro coming on, but Arsenal were forced into the same formation by an injury to Eboue, which saw the introduction of Robin van Persie.
You don’t know what you got till it’s gone, and I must admit I had forgotten the sheer class of van Persie. While he did not produce anything as extravagant as the van reversie today, he still managed to amaze with his quality on the ball, and produced a few decent shots. He even had two golden opportunities to score, but managed to fluff them up completely, as did Cesc. We can laugh away their rustiness now, but let’s hope they get back to their deadly best quickly.
Arsenal kept attacking till the end, which gave the neutrals a lovely open game, though that might be disputed by many Gooners whose pulses may only just be returning to normal. But that’s just the way the Gunners do it! It’s the relentless commitment to quality football that has got the pundits drooling, and even opposition players singing our praises.
The final 10 minutes were as mad as Premiership football can get, the ball pinging from end to end. Cesc finished off the game with a comical lunge at Cole to give the game an apt ending. He picked up the 10th yellow card of the day and ran off to begin the raucous celebrations on the pitch and in the stands. And why not! We had produced quality, battled well during scrappy periods, won the game, reclaimed top spot, and left Ashley Cole fuming mad. Brilliant.