You could see the emotion for my pal Arsene
ARSENE Wenger will have been hurt by some of the things that have gone on at Arsenal this season so a record seventh FA Cup triumph was a fantastic way to finish the season. And if he does decide to call time on his Arsenal career, it is almost the most fitting way for him to go out.
I’ve known him around 30 years. I was trying to look at his body language through the afternoon and saw that he made an effort to go all the way to the Arsenal fans at the end and share their joy. He’s not necessarily an emotional man but this time there was a bit of emotion there. He’s been through so many highs and lows over so many years and for the fans to applaud him like that in front of the owner Stan Kroenke, and the way his team played, it would have meant a lot.
If you knew Arsene could get a tune out of his players like they performed yesterday every week, I think most Arsenal fans would have him stay on. The problem is those other performances through the season that are a bit sleepy.
This time, every single Arsenal player was pumped up. They caught Chelsea flatfooted. Per Mertesacker was man-of-the-match in his first start of the season, and the motivation among Arsenal’s players to win for their club and manager looked greater than Chelsea’s motivation for winning the Double.
We all know Chelsea’s 3-4-3 has caused teams problems all season and it was shrewd of Arsene to match them up with the same system, as Spurs did at White Hart Lane when they beat Chelsea.
When you match the system, it’s all about coming on top of the individual battles. If you can win your battle and outdo your opponent, you can control the game. It’s then up to Antonio Conte to try to come up with something a little bitt different, and he wasn’t able to.
I could tell how disappointed he was by the way Chelsea came out for the second half. They looked like a group of players who’d just encountered a manager havung a go at them. In two formation match-ups you had yesterday, the key players are the two creative players on each team; Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez played more centrally than Eden Hazard and Pedro and were able to open up Chelsea. Ozil and Sanchez were far better on the day.
Added to that, Aaron Ramsey and Granit Xhaka outplayed N’Golo Kante and Nemanja Matic in the middle of the park.
Mertesacker had a bit of protection in a threeman back line, I thought Rob Holding and Nacho Monreal alongside were really great too.