Arsenal 0-2 Chelsea: 4 Questions & Answers By Gunner333

Arsenal slumped to a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Chelsea last night. Here, Gunner333 gives his thoughts on the game.

Arsenal welcomed Chelsea to the Emirates with the hope of gaining our first ‘real’ win over a big club this season (aside from Tottenham). Both sides made changes to their line-ups with the likes of Miyaichi, Jenkinson and Bertrand coming in but the nuclei of either side remained strong.

A brilliant atmosphere surrounded the Emirates and both sides felt they had good opportunities to break the dead-lock. Arsenal’s Ramsey shot wide early on but it was Chelsea’s Azpillicueta who opened the scoring. The Spaniard taking full advantage of an Arsenal defensive mishap. The Gunners caught on the break once again.

From then on Arsenal lost momentum and struggled to gain a foot-hold of the game. Half time and Mourinho’s men lead by one at the break.

Chelsea started the second 45′ brightly and mis-firing Samuel Eto’o had the chance to put his side two up, but the Cameroon forward’s  effort fizzled on wide of the post.

The second did arise for Chelsea though, out-of-favour midfielder Juan Mata trapped the ball, cut inside and curled a great shot into the far corner. Fabianski was well and truly beaten.

Santi Cazorla had a half-chance from a free-kick but the Arsenal midfield could not make anything of an unlikely opportunity. No league cup trophy would be added to the currently vacant Arsenal cabinet, as Chelsea comfortably progress to the next round.

Here I will analyse what I feel we could do to improve on performances like this in future:

Q1) Do we commit too many men forward?

Many times this season we have been susceptible to breaks and last night was no different. Azipillicueta should firstly not have been allowed the space he was given and a poorly judged header from Jenkinson handed Chelsea the opener.

We continuously press too high up the field and do not keep enough defenders back at set pieces. Luna’s final goal exhibited this on opening day against Villa and just last week ex-Arsenal man Chamakh could have done the same. This is something that needs work ahead of a tough trio of games including counter-attacking specialists Borussia Dortmund.

2) Why do we struggle with the simple stuff?

With an exceptional crop of technically gifted playmakers, we have proven that we are capable of playing the complex one-touch beautiful football but lack that roughness to get the ball clear and prevent probable chances. It has not noticed too much this season but once the Big Boys are in town we will be punished for these school-boy errors.

When the ball is in our box we must clear our lines immediately rather than trying to play ourselves out of danger. Our lack of physical strength is mainly down to our style of lay. The players  we have are quick and nimble and therefore do not have the strength required to play the ‘ugly stuff’.

3) Can we rely on squad depth?

Wenger has always been criticised for not spending big and now he has done that ( Ozil, £42million) , the attention is turning to our  lack of squad depth.

Against Chelsea, Wenger fielded a weakened side coupled with the odd first-team player. Of course our stronger stars need their rest but shouldn’t we have back-ups who are ever reliable and will perform  whenever they are called upon? Perhaps some less-glamorous depth-seeking additions will not go a miss in January.

4) How to win the bigger games?

Defeats against Chelsea and Dortmund in the past week have left a number of Gooners pondering over whether or not we can compete with the best. We do not have enough bark with our bite, and are one of the least physically intimidating sides within the Champions League.

As mentioned we focus far too much on the pretty football and are not aggressive enough. To beat the best, we have to become more focused when defending and be able to allocate men to areas in which they are required more.

Thanks for reading and any suggested questions for future articles will be welcomed.