SARRI NOT SORRY
Italian has last laugh as Chelsea edge thriller
AT LEAST it will be fun with Maurizio Sarri. Maybe it is not quite what owner Roman Abramovich had in mind when he took over this club 15 years ago.
It was said he yearned for the sort of excitement he had seen in a seven-goal thriller between Manchester United and Real Madrid and spent years searching a manager with a similar gift of alchemy.
He might have expected a degree more stability from his team but he does have attacking abandon with gusto. Sarri and his opposite number Unai Emery served up a sumptuous dish of a match in terms of chances created; the fare was less refined when assessing defensive practice.
Indeed, the game ebbed and flowed with little sense of order and you could make a case for Arsenal’s gradual progress or their imminent doomsday, depending on which clips you chose to highlight.
Joint bottom with no wins, at times they looked awful. And yet they created a succession of chances and might have won.
Mesut Ozil, substituted in the 68th minute, looks to be the conundrum that needs a fix; the insistence on playing out from the back will cost more points than it gains for now; and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s finishing was painfully askew.
Yet they never once stepped back from the fray. They pressed high, played out and creatively looked a major threat.
For Chelsea, Jorginho again, at times, look imperious and N’Golo Kante and Ross Barkley both impressed. But the emperor was waiting on the bench, arrived on the hour and set up the winning goal.
Eden Hazard simply stood, raised his arms and grinned at The Shed End after providing the assist for Marcos Alonso’s 81st-minute winner. The main celebrations were elsewhere. But the centre of attention and of everything good Chelsea will do this season was the No 10.
Alonso said: ‘I think, in the first half, it was half and half. We started dominating and then lost a bit of space.
‘They played better at the end but, in the second half, we were the better team. It is three deserved points.’
Hazard was full of praise for Sarri, with whom he shares his view on how football should be played.
‘He is the kind of manager who wants the ball, to control the ball. I can’t say a wrong thing about that,’ he said. I want to play and have the ball at my feet. We have players who can do something magic. He is a great manager, like we had before.’ The scoring began in the ninth minute when Jorginho played a delightful ball that bypassed Hector Bellerin and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, and allowed Alonso to attack the space. His cutback was clinical as was the finish from Pedro. Emery kept insisting Arsenal maintain their high line, even as it was frequently breached, Bellerin and Mkhitaryan having an awful 20 minutes. Chelsea, with Jorginho, Kante and David Luiz, kept hitting balls into those channels and Arsenal’s defence were on their heels.
Yet within this period there were signs of Chelsea’s own vulnerability. Matteo Guendouzi played a fine, ball through to Bellerin. He pulled back a pass to Aubameyang who, from eight yards, spurned an open goal, shooting over.
From the goal-kick, Azpilicueta sent a ball through the channel and over the top of the Arsenal defence for Alvaro Morata. He controlled it, shrugged off Shkodran Mustafi, turned and shot for 2-0.
The game seemed set. But that Arsenal chance had suggested there more nuance to it than that. So it proved. Mkhitaryan missed just as easy a chance as Aubameyang’s in the 32nd minute.
Willian then lost possession in the 37th minute and Iwobi recovered it, wriggled forwards and pulled the ball back for the Armenian to try again and this time score, making it 2-1. Kepa got a hand to it and should have made it a stronger, more decisive attempt to save.
Petr Cech then saved from Morata before Bellerin broke down the right in the 41st minute, fed Mkhitaryan, whose pull back was turned in by Iwobi for 2-2.
Even then Arsenal had two further excellent chances before half-time, Aubameyang steering wide from close range in the 44th minute and Iwobi turning over in added time.
On the hour, Hazard arrived, along with Mateo Kovacic, making his debut.
When Emery needed to make a change in the 68th minute, it was Ozil he withdrew, the man from whom he had asked for more in the prelude to this game. If it was a rallying call to form, it had gone unheeded. After Granit Xhaka, he was Arsenal’s least-effective player.
Familiar flaws would return to Arsenal. Alex Lacazette came on for Iwobi and Aubameyang went wide left. Briefly, Arsenal looked more of a threat. Yet Lacazette would lose possession in the centre circle in the 81st minute. As Chelsea worked the ball forward, he attempted to track back to help. When the ball reached Hazard, the Belgian drifted past him, found the byeline, pulled back for Alonso, who shot home.