Arsenal 1 - 2 Chelsea: Horrible performance and deserved defeat

I wish I could sit here and say that we were unlucky, or that we played really well and deserved something from the game. But if I did, I would be lying.

Fact is, this performance was way, way below par of what we've come to expect from Arsenal so far this season. We were outperformed in every area of the pitch and made some crticial errors. The game was effectively over after 75 minutes.

Chelsea played outstandinly well. They stifled our attack time after time. Ramires and Mikel marked Cazorla out of the game and they forced us wide where we would inevitably cross the ball into a crowded area with no one there to take advantage. Then, when they countered, they looked dangerous. Hazard, Mata and Oscar constantly found space in front of our defence and we were very poor in the tackle. We dived in every time.

Then there's the set-piece defending. For the first goal, Chamberlain was marking Luiz in the centre of the box. I don't even need to go into much detail about how wrong that is. Then, Torres somehow got his leg around Koscielny and scored. I've no idea what Koscielny was doing there.

The second goal was just as bad. Mata's free-kick misses everybody, Koscielny tries to clear it but doesn't get near it and Mannone is completely routed to the spot.

Both goals were avoidable and resulted from sloppy play to even give away the free-kicks to begin with.

When I see a performance like this, it's tough for me to dig out any positives. I won't go far into doom and gloom mode, but this performances tells me that we're a long way off being title challengers. Title challengers don't go from one outstanding performance to a crap one in a space of week against their title rivals, neither would they run out of legs and ideas after 75 minutes when they're 2-1 down.

And what's more worrying is that no one in this team seems clinical enough to take those key chances. Cazorla skied two good opportunities over and Giroud missed his third one-on-one this season. Any decent striker worth his salt should his the target there at the very least.

Then we've got guys like Gervinho, who pops up with something good then goes on to be utter rubbish for the rest of the game. Podolski was anonymous for the second week running against top class opposition. Diaby is injured again. Arteta struggled again when put under intense pressure. Ramsey went back to his 11/12 form. Koscielny and Vermaelen forgot how to tackle and were dominated by Torres. Chamberlain lost the ball countless times.

Really, the only two players that played well were Gibbs and Jenkinson.

I'm not going throw away the other performances this season and claim we're hopeless, even though the tone of this rant suggests that. I'm more frustrated than anything. What needs to happen now is that Arsenal need to get over the performance and result quickly and get back to winning ways against Olympiakos and then West Ham.

There are still many things to work on and many players need to up their game. Maybe we can return to hoping that we can be title challengers, but performances like this can make one very despondent about our chances.

/rant

Ramsey should have never started.

Diaby getting injured and us putting on Ox put our midfield all out of wack and out of position

Bring back szczesny Mannone isn't good enough.

Giroud

"Chelsea will park the bus"

"Not impressed by Chelsea"

"They may be leading the comp, but they've been playing terribly"

"They got thrashed by Atletico and couldn't beat Juventus"

"We will dominate their midfield"

"Predicting a 4-0 thrashing"

How about now we stop underestimating our rivals...

I agree silver. Fans saying Chelsea weren't all that and that we'd win comfortably and looking very silly right now.

Is it me or Arteta seems to struggle when teams press high up the pitch, last week against City and today against Chelski

Chelsea might have been the better side today but we gave them this win with those poor goals.

Last time I make a prediction

Horrible performance for the better part of 90 minutes. 2nd half was a disaster, especially with Ox at CM...he has no positional awareness, and I think we might have been better off by taking Gervinho off, and throwing Ox at LW instead. Taking Poldi off was a mistake too imo, he was making smart runs, and finding space in the box. And unfortunately, there's no excusing that Giroud miss, any top class striker would have at least hit the target.

As for our defence, it was shambolic defending off set pieces. Why was Chamberlain marking Luiz...If you want to call it that? I wanted Koscielny to start, but I guess this proves Per's value to the team, he's undroppable now.

Only positive for me was Jenko, edit: and Gibbs, though his decisions at times were quesitonable.

Arsenal.. Self Destruction mode ON...
Thanks to all the fans and a major portion of neutral fans for jinxing this...
Diaby is back in the bed... back to Arsenal setpiece defending.. and this seasons Self Destruction mode has been turned on..
the only way ahead is to take some positives of the game and move forward...
We managed to keep at bay the talent of Mata, Hazard and Oscar.. none of them got any real chances.. Unfortunately Torres had his best game in the near past..
Suprise.. that Chelsea came forward and tried to play the game rather than PTB.. it was a midfield battle in the first half.. it was a good time to equalise and we carried that momentum to the second half.. but we had the better chances.. after the 2nd goal, the team lost its confidence and that affected the play...
We conceded needless freekicks unlike in the previous matches and paid the price for it...

Mannone - 6 pretty unevenful game..
Gibbs - 7 great tackles and interceptions.. could have done better with crosses upfront..
Vermaelen - 6 caught out of position.. had to make some rash challenges..
Koscielny - 5 he is destroyed.. directly at fault for both the goals.. never recovered from the shock..
Jenkinson - 7.5 the only player to come out with positives.. wasnt tested much defensively.. was great going forward..
Arteta - 7 consistent.. won possession.. put his body and won freekicks..
Diaby - 6 looked good.. deja vu..
Ramsey - 6.5 good match.. worked hard.. looked impressive.. waned out in the second half...
Cazorla - 6 pretty poor match by his standards.. some poor decision making..
Podolski - 5.5 was anonymous for most of the match
Gervinho - 7 a typical mixed performance.. terrific workrate.. have to thank him for the wonderfully taken goal..
Ox - 6.5 good performance.. tried hard..
Giroud - 5 let down again with his only chance...
Walcott - 5 had 20 mins to do something.. was anonymous.. should really show some heart if he deserves respect..

so i think it was a decent match.. and we could have come out with atleast a point if it was not for our poor setpiece depending...

Kos was at fault for both goals no idea what he was doing with his back to the ball for the Torres goal, and was a nice finish past Mannone for the 2nd goal.
Same Ramsey from last year when playing in the middle overdribbling and making poor passes to constantly put the defence under pressure.

Coquelin should of played no one in our midfield had any pace.
Gervinho was our best player worked his heart out and got the ball back a lot when tracking back, he took his goal very well.

Emaharg wrote:Kos was at fault for both goals no idea what he was doing with his back to the ball for the Torres goal, and was a nice finish past Mannone for the 2nd goal.
Same Ramsey from last year when playing in the middle overdribbling and making poor passes to constantly put the defence under pressure.

Coquelin should of played no one in our midfield had any pace.
Gervinho was our best player worked his heart out and got the ball back a lot when tracking back, he took his goal very well.

I can't see Wenger starting Coquelin over Ramsey, he will play Ox there like he did today when Ramsey went off

Here are my thoughts:

Those were 2 soft ass goals to let in . Scz would have stopped em both. Manonne is fkin scared to commit when a ball is crossed in the box. THat last goal being the perfect example. Defenders did have an off day, but those goals should have been easily taken care of .
Fair play to Chelsea, they looked as tho they wanted the 3 points more than us.
This game makes me realize just how important Per Mertesacker is to us (He should start from now onward). Hope we learn from this match.

Oh yea, and not at all convinced with Gervinho.... Would have rather we kept Podolski instead.

this game did slip away , but I cant convince my self that we deserved 3 points from this.

Bttw i posted this very same paragraph on the wrong thread lol

VendettaRed07 wrote:Ramsey should have never started.

Diaby getting injured and us putting on Ox put our midfield all out of wack and out of position

Bring back szczesny Mannone isn't good enough.

Giroud

what did ramsey do so wrong? u cant blame him for this defeat. koscienly was fault at both goals and so was vermealen coz both freekicks were given by him.

If we play like this then there is no chance for us winning league. Coz we cant simply take our chances and concede goals these goals.

We were absolutely awful. Outclassed in every manner, even our prized possession went to Chelsea. There was no reason to ruin our defensive concentration by bringing in Kos for Per. That was unnecessary and ultimately killed us. There was a goal in us but unfortunately Giroud skewed it wide. That needs to change. Back to square one.

I feel sick right now. I'm simply disgusted with so many players today. The following players had their worst games of the season thus far: Ramsey, Podolski, Gibbs, Koscielny, Vermaelen. Gervinho was pretty useless too bar his goal, and Theo made no impact at all from the bench. However, Oxlade-Chamberlain really disappointed me; I don't think it would be an exaggeration at all to say that this was his worst performance in an Arsenal shirt. He shouldn't have been put central, offered nothing defensively, and lost the ball almost every time he tried to do something with it after he changed positions, bar his part in the move that ended with Giroud's miss

It felt like we had Cazorla and Arteta today and nobody else. If they touched the ball, things happened, if they didn't, we lost it immediately. Giroud screwed up at the end there but at least his presence gave us someone up front, so he should have started. Diaby also never should have been taken off - it took us 30 minutes to resettle and him being taken off made our midfield almost anonymous whenever Chelsea got the ball.

Realistically, this is one game in a long season, but I'm not feeling rational at the moment. I'm so *bleep* upset atm. My day has pretty much been ruined.

djoe26 wrote:

VendettaRed07 wrote:Ramsey should have never started.

Diaby getting injured and us putting on Ox put our midfield all out of wack and out of position

Bring back szczesny Mannone isn't good enough.

Giroud

what did ramsey do so wrong? u cant blame him for this defeat. koscienly was fault at both goals and so was vermealen coz both freekicks were given by him.

If we play like this then there is no chance for us winning league. Coz we cant simply take our chances and concede goals these goals.

its not what he does wrong he just doesn't do anything positive really. We have better players that should be starting ahead of him. Ox or Theo should be starting on the right wing ahead of him.

Gibbo and Jenkinson were very good today, Gibbs should work on his shooting and crossing, it's awful

Gibbs was very good today. Had to do so much work and did it well. Don't see how anyone could be disappointed with his performance.

Also, I've never been convinced by Mannone. To be honest, from the few games he's played, he's shown that he doesn't have the ability to play at the top level. The save to shots ratio stat that he was leading the EPL in was very misleading as before today we'd allowed the lowest or second lowest shots on goal in the league.

Our fullbacks were very good today though, especially Gibbs.

Diaby injured, Mannone mediocre, Gervinho wasteful, Giroud taking another blow to his confidence, Koscielny and Vermaelen a mess together again, overall poor.

Speedy recovery to Szczesny and Wilshere, bring back Per, let's get on our feet.

djoe26 wrote:

VendettaRed07 wrote:Ramsey should have never started.

Diaby getting injured and us putting on Ox put our midfield all out of wack and out of position

Bring back szczesny Mannone isn't good enough.

Giroud

what did ramsey do so wrong? u cant blame him for this defeat. koscienly was fault at both goals and so was vermealen coz both freekicks were given by him.

If we play like this then there is no chance for us winning league. Coz we cant simply take our chances and concede goals these goals.

Ah Ramsey turned the ball constantly by trying to dribble past players.
He was playing as a deeplying midfielder your job is to retain possession and spread the ball not turn the ball over to put your defence under pressure vs the likes of Torres, Oscar, Mata and Hazard.

Stoke (a) Liverpool (a) Man City (a) Chelsea (h) out of the way at least.

As for the performance,

I thought Gibbs and Ramsey had an okay game. We never got into the groove. Ramirez and Oscar did well to disrupt our flow int he midfield.
I wish wenger would have given Arshavin a go at this game.

On the bright side we will have easier fixtures from now on, while our rivals play each other. So lets go on a winning streak mmmmkay?

GoonerJay29 wrote:Gibbs was very good today. Had to do so much work and did it well. Don't see how anyone could be disappointed with his performance.

Maybe it was because I was already upset, but I noticed Gibbs being out of position many times. Arteta yelled at him once for it.

Done with my rant. Still feeling really frustrated right now.

VendettaRed07 wrote:

djoe26 wrote:

VendettaRed07 wrote:Ramsey should have never started.

Diaby getting injured and us putting on Ox put our midfield all out of wack and out of position

Bring back szczesny Mannone isn't good enough.

Giroud

what did ramsey do so wrong? u cant blame him for this defeat. koscienly was fault at both goals and so was vermealen coz both freekicks were given by him.

If we play like this then there is no chance for us winning league. Coz we cant simply take our chances and concede goals these goals.

its not what he does wrong he just doesn't do anything positive really. We have better players that should be starting ahead of him. Ox or Theo should be starting on the right wing ahead of him.

we have better players to use on wings, that one i agree but he didnt played that bad to blame for this match. And i dont understand why walcott didnt start on wing.

Emaharg wrote:

djoe26 wrote:

VendettaRed07 wrote:Ramsey should have never started.

Diaby getting injured and us putting on Ox put our midfield all out of wack and out of position

Bring back szczesny Mannone isn't good enough.

Giroud

what did ramsey do so wrong? u cant blame him for this defeat. koscienly was fault at both goals and so was vermealen coz both freekicks were given by him.

If we play like this then there is no chance for us winning league. Coz we cant simply take our chances and concede goals these goals.

Ah Ramsey turned the ball constantly by trying to dribble past players.
He was playing as a deeplying midfielder your job is to retain possession and spread the ball not turn the ball over to put your defence under pressure vs the likes of Torres, Oscar, Mata and Hazard.

talking of putting defence under pressure then we can blame arteta for 2nd goal when he lost the ball to torres and vermealen was caught out of position. About pressure i think chelsea did very well with pressing u cant simply just blame ramsey for that. i think whole team didnt play well.

I'll admit I was worried a bit with the wide areas before the game but Gibbs and Jenkinson are both our 1st choice fullbacks even if Sagna comes back.
They were immense apart from a needless pass or two from Gibbs.

Our midfield never really looked like bossing today. Ramsey and later Ox were awful with their decision making.

But this game was surely lost by our central defense.
Koscielny had a nightmare and Vermalen's constant fauling didn't help either.

Front 3 looked uninterested bar some patches in the game.

Maybe some'll think I'm mad but I want Giroud to start the next game.
He needs a start under his belt to prove what's his worth.

Even if his miss left me pulling my hair out, we need to understand that he's not and impact player, he needs time to settle in a match.

I'm eagerly awaiting jay's post,should be interesting.

Its even worse when u set your self to wake up early just to watch the game and the boys dont turn up. Whats worse, the god damn stream kept lagging/stopping quite a lot towards the end... I guess in a way it sort of de sensetised me to the final score.