The Champions coming from a win were high on confidence while Arsene Wenger’s team was coming back of a shock defeat against Dinamo Zagreb in the mid-week Champions League fixtures. Chelsea went on to win 2-0, with both Zouma and Hazard on the score sheet. For Arsenal, it was a frustrating evening, two of their players getting sent off, Gabriel and Cazorla, whereas Gabriel been given a start red for his coming together with Diego Costa.
Costa was a lucky man
Gabriel and Costa’s outbreak was the moment that changed the game in split seconds. Costa will thank his stars at having not been sent off, be it the slap on Koscielny or the late tackle on Oxlade-Chamberlain just moments before coming off. And yet, despite Costa’s antics, it was Gabriel Paulista who saw red following a fierce altercation with the Spanish international.
In such a high voltage clash, it was the decisions regarding Costa that referee Mike Dean and his assistants faltered on. One of the funniest stats which came out of this game was that Diego Costa did not register a single foul in the game despite his antics.
3 red card in 2 games
Santi Cazorla’s red card was Arsenal third red card in a space two games following Giroud’s sending off against Dinamo Zagreb on Wednesday. Wenger will need to sort out the discipline in his team, if they want to compete against the best. Playing with ten men was difficult but being down to nine men against a Mourinho side will make your job impossible.
Gabriel foolishness to kick Costa in front of the referee, right after being warned and shown a yellow card for his coming together with Costa by Mark Dean, was nothing but silly.
Mourinho’s dominance over rival Wenger continues
Arsene Wenger secured his first victory over Jose Mourinho at the 14th attempt in all competitions after Arsenal defeated Chelsea in the Community Shield 1-0. However for Wenger the turnaround didn’t last too long. Chelsea are now unbeaten against Arsenal in their last eight Premier League encounters. Arsenal have failed to score against the Blues in the last five league matches.
Wenger will be hoping that his team can finally score against Mourinho’s men when these two teams meet again in January. Right now it’s looking like Mourinho is the last one laughing but who knows maybe if those two red cards didn’t happen, things might have been different.
Zouma has replaced Terry
One player who stood out from the rest was defender Kurt Zouma. Mourinho decided to bench captain Terry again and went for a younger Zouma. The Chelsea defence has been shambolic since the start of the season but today they were rock solid.
It’s is too often that we see John Terry leaping in the air and heading his team ahead and today it was Zouma who took over that task. Zouma did exceptionally well to keep Walcott from exploiting the space behind back four.
Chelsea back on track
Chelsea did match to get over the line, but it was a scrappy win, they still don’t convince as a team who can replicate the success of last reason. Their Defense looked solid and going forward they created more chances. Fabregas has been criticized for a lethargic start to the season but today he was all over the pitch, running and creating lots of chances and put in a great performance in the Chelsea midfield.
Even Belgian midfielder Hazard made some good runs and was a constant threat down the left wing. The most pleasing part was the fact that he got a goal almost at the death.