Dembele is out for 4 months
HE would never admit it, but the one player Antonio Conte needed for this contest was Diego Costa.
Alvaro Morata may be a more stylish striker, easier on the eye and far more low maintenance.
But Costa would have given Arsenal nightmares, snapping and snarling, pinching and poking and generally doing whatever he could to get Gunners defenders to bite.
The former Real Madrid star is such a nice lad, but is just not the menace to footballing society that Costa has made himself.
Morata was dominated by Shkodran Mustafi and frustrated by the Arsenal defence as a whole. He was roughed up by the mice revelling in the fact that the cat was away.
That’s why Conte must regret sending that fateful, well-documented text message last summer.
These are the games in which Arsene Wenger will be delighted that he did.
This was the first time in 27 competitive home games under Conte that Chelsea had failed to score.
This was the first time in six years that Arsenal were able to take a point from the Blues at Stamford Bridge. Yes, Morata has previously scored against Leicester, Everton and Burnley to prove he does know where the goal is.
But in the toughest Premier League title race we have probably ever seen, it is in this kind of game that dropped points could prove the difference.
As you’d expect, Conte (below) responded to questions about Morata by asking us to look beyond his failure to score.
“Morata played a good game,” he said. “I’m happy with his performance. We are not focused on whether the No.9 scores or not.
“Others feel that if he scored, he played a good game, if he doesn’t he didn’t have a good game. But we see other things.”
Costa will have watched this stalemate in Brazil, munching on his KFC, convinced he would have had the Gunners for breakfast. What a waste he will spend the next few months kicking his heels instead of banging in goals.
There is no chance of Conte going back on his decision to exile the man whose goals clinched two titles at the Bridge.
What he will have to do is work on Morata, to try to turn his choirboy into a footballing killer like Costa. BARCELONA look set to be without record signing Ousmane Dembele for up to four months.
The French forward, who signed in a deal worth £135.5million from Borussia Dortmund in the summer, ruptured a tendon in his left thigh during the 2-1 win at Getafe on Saturday.
A club statement said: “The player will be operated on in Finland this week. He is expected to be out for between three-anda-half months and four months.”
Dembele will miss France’s final two World Cup qualifiers, away to Bulgaria and at home to Belarus in October.
Barcelona won in Getafe thanks to late goals from Denis Suarez and Paulinho after Gaku Shibasaki’s brilliant strike had given the hosts the lead.
Barca boss Ernesto Valverde admitted his side found the conditions tough.
He said: “We found it very difficult. It was a very difficult game at a very complicated stadium,”
“Our opponents were very aggressive and played with confidence, while the pitch was very dry. This match was a test for us, given that we had to stage a comeback. That means a lot to us.”