i think it was about 58 minutes into yesterday afternoon's game and, with arsenal struggling to make any real inroads despite trailing by a goal, it was at this point i turned to my brother and said "arsenal should take off van persie - he's been anonymous and they should stick a man on mikel instead". i'm sure you can imagine how the next 5 minutes unfolded.
it was that kind of day at stamford bridge yesterday - unexpected and completely bewildering. chelsea were in charge despite creating little of note, their main attacking avenues were trying to play kalou and anelka in through the middle, despite the pace of the arsenal back four making that proposition rather difficult. the goal came about through mostly because samir nasri singularly failed to track bosingwa's run, allowing the portuguese into an incredibly dangerous position; his cross was exceptional, djorou's response entirely forgiveable. both before and after the opener, arsenal were out of form and out of shape, listlessly giving away the ball, suffering from denilson's ineptitude on the right (ineptitude that was generally not his fault), a poor performance from fabregas and the anonymity of their strikeforce. samir nasri buzzed around to little effect and alex song was frequently struggling to contain the multitude of midfield runners he had to contend with. and whilst the gunners carved out a couple of half-chances, it appeared to be another bad afternoon for arsene wenger.
but it was a match turned on its head by sheer chance: a clearly offside robin van persie slammed home an equaliser after an hour gone, and when the same player rifled in a second after emmanuel adebayor made his first contribution of the game, soaring higher than anyone in a blue shirt to nod the ball down, the match was transformed; it was the type of five minute spell that only the most hardened of arsenal-hater could begrudge.
however, this period, and what followed, cannot be dismissed as insignificant, for it provides valuable insight into the potential fortunes of both sides over the coming months. for chelsea the evidence was damning, for arsenal it hopefully put things into proper perspective.
for chelsea, we cannot overlook that this was nearly a comfortable victory. arsenal weren't very good up until van persie scored, and without that good fortune one suspects it may have continued in the vein of the first hour. however, what that crazy five minutes did was to reveal the flaws that i alluded to on friday - namely the lack of attacking options on the bench. when reduced to chasing the game, scolari could only muster florent malouda (whose contribution consisted of getting caught offside and blasting a free kick over the bar) and miroslav stoch, a debutant who was most notable for how blindingly quick his small legs moved when he ran. that just won't do, especially when deco is suffering a quite obvious dip in form (i'm sure someone predicted that amongst the universal praise that was raining down in august...).
but more than that, scolari was worryingly at fault after the goals. in perhaps a more lucid moment, when he took mikel off i turned to my brother and questioned the substitution; by my reckoning, the nigerian was having an excellent game, doing more than any other chelsea player to break up the play and also playing the crucial role of instigator, starting the chelsea attacks from defense. this is precisely why i felt arsenal should take off van persie, as it would allow them to station a man to stifle mikel, as gerrard did for liverpool, in a game when chelsea were even more ineffectual. but by removing mikel himself, scolari opened up his side to arsenal's counter-attacking, and suddenly the gunners were looking more dangerous than at any point previously. it also damaged chelsea's passing rhythm, and with the subsitutes ineffectual, the match petered out with very few chances for the home side.
tellingly, peter kenyon came out this morning to say that there would be no purchases during january, and that didier drogba would be going nowhere. but this isn't really good enough for a side with pretensions of league and european glory - the way their attack has spluttered against liverpool and now arsenal suggests a true deficiency within the squad, and with the blueprint to beat the current iteration of the side established by rafa benetiz, chelsea need to have more tactical variation in order to progress.
for arsenal and their manager, the match must have provided supreme comfort. not necessarily because it was a particularly good performance, or that wenger's tactical and personnel decisions were particularly validated, but because the manner of victory should put things into proper perspective. simply put, it is the manner of robin van persie's goals - two truly excellent strikes - that seemed to underline the excellence within wenger's squad, an excellence that separates them from the rest of the league in the fight for 4th place. and for all of the predictable talk of team vs individual talent, the importance of the unit, i just feel that there is too much talent in that arsenal team for them to finish outside of the top 4, and not enough elsewhere to compensate for that. you would hope this has the dual role of both galvanising the team internally and finally ceasing the incessant media sniping that has accompanied the side up until this point; as a result, it will probably do more for the latter than the victory over united, which was easily dismissed by media pundits as classic arsenal, out-footballing their opponents in a match that quite easily could've ended up 4-4. this was a match that featured a solitary chelsea shot on target and a rearguard breached largely because of misfortune.
therefore, if there was anything further to take from what was overall a reasonably poor arsenal performance with the ball, it probably revolves around the performance of the back four. clichy and sagna were predictably excellent, with clichy becoming more and more dangerous going forward as the match progressed and sagna performing with the unassuming solidity of a man who has quietly progressed to be the best right-back in the premier league in a startling short time frame. moreover, it was an excellent performance from johan djorou, own goal excused, who looked exceedingly comfortable for the entire game, whilst william gallas alongside him was also thoroughly solid, using his pace to negate anelka. obviously any critique of arsenal's defending needs to be put in proper context, and there is a good chance that had they been up against a rampaging didier drogba, as they were in last year's fixture, they would have been similarly dominated physically. however, djorou has certainly progressed from the slightly callow, error-prone version of previous seasons to at least appear an upgrade over the woeful mickael silvestre (i've given up any sort of balance here... the man just isn't good enough) and the potentially past-it/malaria subdued (delete as appropriate) kolo toure. certainly, his emergence allows the re-emergence of the intriguing toure-to-midfield rumour that was rife about 6 months ago, at least when the ivorian returns from injury.
finally, and without wanting to labour the point, the match still presented an indictment of wenger's transfer policy. wenger's failure to buy another wide player in the summer (when he needed at least one more, but instead merely chose to swap hleb for nasri) meant that denilson was on the flank - and if the brazilian wasn't stationed out there, lacking the ability to penetrate either on the ball or off it, you could imagine abou diaby playing the role similarly poorly. this contributed to arsenal's lack of fluidity, as without the willing outlet walcott has become ball retention suffered. arsenal probably would've been better off giving wilshere a game on the right than denilson, whose main contribution was to perform the most blatant, incompetent, dive you will see all season. in addition, it was another patchy game for alex song, who has also yet to prove he can truly fit within arsenal's system.
ultimately, then, it wasn't a great game. it was two teams that broadly struggled to fashion chances, one nervy and slightly rudderless, the other simply lacking the ability, but in the way it burst into life, further demolishing the myth of chelsea whilst similarly altering perceptions of arsenal's future, it may just have been the most important one yet.
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