Arsenal reacted to their exit from the Champions League with two 7-0 wins in the Premier League. This time the Gunners defeated Chelsea. Mikel Arteta’s team remains in first place.
Chelsea played against Arsenal without its main star, Palmer, the Premier League’s top scorer along with Haaland. Cole is sick. The coach of the ‘bleus’, Mauricio Pochettino, speaking before the match about the absence of the scorer of 20 goals in the English championship, made an interesting statement:
“It’s a good challenge that Palmer is not available. A challenge for his colleagues. If I were a teammate of Cole Palmer in his position or a similar position, I would be motivated to go out on the field and show that this is Chelsea Football Club and not Cole Palmer FC. Of course, this is a good example for them: why does everything turn out well for him and why can’t they do the same?
The game started very lively. First of all, thanks to Arsenal. In the first attack, Chelsea center back Badiashile received a pass behind his back, former Blues striker Havertz escaped one by one and fell in the area. The linesman saved us from the discussion about whether a foul had been committed: he flagged that it was offside. In fact, there was. Little.
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Chelsea’s right flank was covered by the Gilchrist-Madueke pairing, although a Gusteau-Palmer pairing could have been there. And from there came Arsenal’s scoring attack. Still, the home team scored a quick goal in the fourth minute with the first shot. This attack was favored by the traditional movement of the left back towards the center. Madueke was torn between Tomiyasu and Rice, who had opened in his zone, Gilchrist tried to provide him with insurance, but in this situation Trossard was released. Declan timely shared the ball with the Belgian, and goalkeeper Petrovic missed the ball under his foot, which, apparently, had the opportunity to save.
Even after the goal, Arsenal dominated and created chances, while Chelsea allowed too many turnovers in their own half under pressure from the opposition. According to the statistics, Pochettino’s team had more possession of the ball in the first half, but only through passes in the own and middle third of the field. But the Gunners were twice as good as the Blues in terms of passing in the opposition third. As well as in matters of strikes. Before the break, Chelsea had never shot on goal. Palmer, of course, could not be replaced, despite the coach’s motivational speech. Pochettino’s team could only hope for standards and rare successful episodes with Jackson’s participation (he surpassed Saliba a couple of times). One day, the ball, after jerking and bouncing off Magallanes’ leg, hit the post.
Arsenal started the second half very strongly. In the first minutes after the break, Arteta’s team created several scoring chances. Even again thanks to the pressure, when Badiashile set up Gallagher with a terrible pass. Rice intercepted and completed the counterattack himself: Petrovich shot. And then Arsenal remembered that they lead the Premier League in goals from set pieces. The home team’s second goal came after a corner kick. Chelsea were positioned a bit strangely, the Gunners had a two-to-one lead and two more free Arsenal players were in the semicircle. Defenseman White scored on the rebound.
After that, Arsenal were torn on the counterattacks. After an hour into the game, the score was already wide. The Gunners’ third goal came after a very complicated pass from Magalhães in a duel with Madueke. The ball was immediately thrown to Havertz, who was not reached in time by the left back Cucurella, who was securing Badiashile. And the German greeted his former team, making his way on horseback.
Havertz didn’t stop there: eight minutes later he scored a double. Saka received the ball in a wide position, shook Cucurella and passed the ball into the German area. Badiashile, as often happens in the Premier League, represented the training stance perfectly, and Disasi did not help. The Serbian goalkeeper of the “blues” went to take the ball out of the net: the last time he conceded four goals was a month ago with the Russian team.
Pochettino released another defender, Chaloba, apparently so that his “floating” team could avoid a completely terrible defeat. However, Arsenal soon scored their fifth. Once again, Saka received the ball in a wide position and pulled for Cucurella, but he passed the ball to Odegaard and the Norwegian lofted the ball into White’s box. Ben seemed to want to pass to his teammate, but a beautiful volley came out, with which he scored a double. 0-5 is not as bad as it could have been for Chelsea based on a game like that. The final statistics of shots is 27:7 (on goal – 10:1, from the area – 19:6).
