DIEGO AT IT AGAIN
Arsenal can’t handle Costa
As he made his way with impudent sloth to the touchline, derision filled the evening air. Boos and catcalls, familiar gestures of anger and impotent rage.
And then the response from the blue corner. ‘Diego Costa — he’s done it again,’ the Chelsea end crowed. And he had. Drawn the red card. Again. Got the goal. Again. Got right up Arsenal’s hooter. Again. It was just like old times.
The result was a traditional one, also. A Chelsea win. These teams have met 27 times competitively in 12 seasons and this was Chelsea’s 16th victory, with seven draws.
The last 12 goals, in league fixtures, have belonged to Chelsea, too, and it is five years since Arsenal beat them at home. Do Arsenal have the nerve to win the title this season? Maybe. But they don’t appear to have the steel required to see off Chelsea.
They behave uncommonly around those blue shirts, too. They get sent off, they dry up. The game was almost over before Arsenal mustered a shot on target and even then it was the result of a goalmouth scramble rather than any precision manoeuvre from the training ground.
Not many teams will drop six points to Chelsea this season, but Arsenal are the first.
And while they may curse bad luck and Costa’s dark side for the defeat at stamford Bridge, the buck stops with the home team here. Per Mertesacker made a dreadful decision leading to his dismissal, which handed the advantage to Chelsea; his replacement Gabriel failed to pick up Costa for the goal and the architects of Arsenal’s season such as Mesut Ozil were ineffectual.
Cesc Fabregas ran the game in midfield, aided as ever by the tireless Willian, and was unfortunate not to win a penalty when bodychecked by Laurent Koscielny after a beautiful run in the second half. That Nemanja Matic gave away a foul, and was booked, for an identical challenge on Alexis sanchez in midfield soon after illustrated the inconsistency.
True, Arsenal were down to 10 for 71 minutes of the match but, even handicapped, they knew what they had to do after half-time and disappointed. Their best chances were scrappy scrambles with opportunity coming by fortuitous deflection rather than invention.
Leicester will have looked at this with quiet satisfaction. Everyone thought they would be the ones to blink first but Arsenal have now taken eight points from 18 in their last six league matches.
And so to the call that changed the game. By popular consent, Petr Cech is the best goalkeeper around here since David seaman. so, knowing that, why didn’t Mertesacker trust him to deal with Diego Costa in the 19th minute, even one on one?
When Willian’s pass put Costa through, Mertesacker’s lack of pace left him floundering. At that point, however, he still had a choice. Lunge, risk missing his tackle, and play the inevitable game of red-card roulette with Mark Clattenburg, the referee, or chase Costa, applying as much pressure as possible and hope that Cech would do the rest.
The worst that could happen, in those circumstances, would be that Arsenal went a goal down, against a team that started the day in 14th place, with 70 minutes to retrieve the game. Instead, Mertesacker pressed the self-destruct button.
As usual, when things happen in a rush, there was the debate about whether Costa was taken out, clipped, dangled a trailing leg or merely fell over taking evasive action.
It really doesn’t matter. Mertesacker’s tackle was wild and did not allow Costa to continue his run on goal.
Clattenburg did the right thing. He saw Mertesacker as having denied Chelsea a goalscoring opportunity and dismissed him.
It is the seventh time in the Premier League that an Arsenal player has been sent off against Chelsea — not including Gabriel’s red at stamford Bridge earlier in the season, later rescinded.
Chelsea have a way of getting under red skins and, momentarily, Arsenal lost their way. Wenger’s reaction — removing Olivier Giroud for a centre-half, Gabriel, was not well received, and Gabriel’s first involvement was calamitous.
He had been on the pitch barely a minute when Branislav Ivanovic whipped in a cross from the right, which Costa met at the near post, getting across Gabriel and forcing the ball into the net. He is back to his best, no doubt of that, recording more goals and assists under Guus Hiddink than he did in 16 league games with Jose Mourinho this season.
Arsenal rallied but Chelsea could have moved further ahead shortly before halftime. Another fine ball from Willian found Costa but Cech saved well at the near post. Iva no vic’ s powerful header from the corner was cleared off the line by Nacho Monreal.
Arsenal had one good first-half chance before being numerically disadvantaged, and one after it.
In the second minute, a cross by Theo Walcott — honorary captain on the day after 10 years at the club, hooked late on having had a disappointing day — deserved better than a skewed finish from Joel Campbell.
Then, with the last attack of the half, a neat chip from Aaron Ramsey was met by Mathieu Flamini — beating the offside trap but not his own frailty in front of goal — choosing an ambitious volley which troubled only those departing early for a consoling cup of tea.
sanchez appeared after half-time but by now Chelsea were in default resist mode. It is taking no credit from interim manager Hiddink to describe this as a Mourinho performance in its structure.
sitting in front of the back four, Matic and John Obi Mikel invited Arsenal to try to find a way through six, plus Thibaut Courtois.
There were occasional scares. In the 64th minute, the ball struck Cesar Azplicueta on the back and pinballed around the area before Kurt Zouma fired it upfield.
In the 86th minute, a deflected flick from Flamini at last forced Courtois to make a save.
Chelsea now have the longest unbeaten run in the Premier League — seven games — but it is slow going. An away win at Arsenal took them to 13th. still this is a different team — ‘12 new signings’ as Alan shearer waspishly observed — to the Chelsea on display in the first half of the season. Mind you, even that lot beat Arsenal. Tells you something, doesn’t it?