The Irish Mail on Sunday

SARRI HAS LAST LAUGH

End to end, a number of misses and mistakes but, despite Arsenal’s fightback...

- By Rob Draper

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 for 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 game 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.

On the debit side: Mesut Ozil, substitute­d in the 68th minute, already looks to be the major conundrum that needs a fix in this system; the insistence on playing out from the back will cost more points than it gains for some time yet; 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 and arrived on the hour to 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 little No10.

You feared, however, that it would lack the heavyweigh­t lustre of battles of old without an Arsene Wenger or a Jose Mourinho on the bench. But it more than made up for that in terms of its attacking abandon in the first half. That trend for the high press, high defensive lines and the insistence on playing it out from the back may irritate Sam Allardyce as a combinatio­n fraught with incredible risks. Neutrals, though, will lap up the entertainm­ent as everyone tries and fails to emulate Pep Guardiola.

At times it resembled the circus. The defending was clownish. At the end of 45 minutes there had been enough shifts in momentum and notable events to last 90 minutes and extra time.

It seemed as though the die was cast in the first five minutes. Arsenal, just as expected, played out of the back from Petr Cech and, just as expected, they were awful. Three goals kick in succession Cech tried it; three times Chelsea won back possession almost immediatel­y and posed a goal threat.

Matteo Guendouzi looks bold and spirited but not ready for this kind of game yet, or maybe he just needs a proper midfield partner. Granit Xhaka was anonymous, other than the yellow card for hacking down Pedro. He was withdrawn at halftime for Lucas Torreira.

It was wholly predictabl­e in the ninth minute when Jorginho, the clear leader of this team, played a delightful ball that bypassed Hector Bellerin and Henrikh Mkhitaryan and allowed Alonso to attack the space. His pull back was clinical, as was the finish from Pedro for 1-0.

Emery kept insisting his Arsenal team maintain their high line of defending 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 permanentl­y on their heels attempting to recover the situation.

Yet within this period there were signs of Chelsea’s own vulnerabil­ity. Guendouzi played a fine, threaded ball through to Bellerin, who pulled back a pass to Aubameyang who, incredulou­sly from eight yards, spurned an open goal, shooting over. From the goal-kick, Cesar Azpilicuet­a sent one of Sarri’s

trademark balls through the channels and over the top of the Arsenal defence for Alvaro Morata. He controlled the ball, shrugged off the ineffectua­l shepherdin­g of Shkodran Mustafi, turned inside and shot for 2-0, his first Premier League goal since April 1.

The game seemed set. But that Arsenal chance had suggested there was more nuance to it than that. And so it proved. Mkhitarayn missed an easy chance in the 32nd minute, Willian then lost possession in the 37th minute and Alex 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 a stronger, more decisive attempt to save.

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 wastefully wide from close range in the 44th minute and Iwobi turning over in added time.

A semblance of normality prevailed after half-time once the managers had reorganise­d. It did not stop Arsenal playing out from the back though, nor did they improve. In the 53rd minute, as they attempted it again, Pedro won possession, attacked, fed Kante, whose shot was blocked by Sokratis Papastatho­poulos, smothering it with his body, possibly with his hands, though even initial replays were inconclusi­ve. Barkley produced the next good chance in the 57th minute, again Chelsea winning possession just in front of Arsenal penalty area with the Liverpudli­an driving on, shrugging off Nacho Monreal and producing a sharp save from Cech as he shot across goal. By now, Chelsea fans were anticipati­ng Hazard’s arrival. Sure enough, on the hour, the Belgian arrived, along with Mateo Kovacic, making his debut. More significan­tly, 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 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 simply drifted past him, found the byline, pulled the ball back for Alonso, who shot cleanly home.

Chelsea (4-3-3): Kepa 5.5; Azpilicuet­a, 6 Rudiger, 6 Luiz, 6 Alonso 7.5; Barkley, 7 (Kovacic, 60min, 6) Jorginho,8 Kante 7; Pedro, 7.5 Morata 7 (Giroud 75, 6.5) Willian 6 (Hazard 60, 7.5). subs (not used): Caballero, Moses, Zappacosta, Christense­n.

arsenal (4-2-3-1): Cech 5.5; Bellerin 5.5, Sokratis 5.5, Mustafi 5, Monreal 6; Xhaka 4, (Torreira 45, 7) Guendouzi 7; Mkhitaryan, 7 Ozil, 5 (Ramsey, 68, 7) Iwobi 7 (Lacazette, 75, 6.5); Aubameyang 5. Booked: Mustafi, Xhaka. subs (not used): Leno, Elneny, Lichtstein­er, Welbeck.

referee: M Atkinson 7.

 ??  ?? THREESY DOES IT: Marcos Alonso (third right) fires in the winner for Chelsea
THREESY DOES IT: Marcos Alonso (third right) fires in the winner for Chelsea
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 ??  ?? ON A HIGH: Pedro and Alonso
ON A HIGH: Pedro and Alonso

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