Arsenal Show Steel To Defeat Chelsea...

Well, well what do we have here? Arsenal beating Chelsea 3-1 now that result classes as a collectors item. How did they do it? Well I hope I can answer that for you.

Subs: 46mins Ramires > Mikel, 57mins Kakuta > Malouda, 61mins Bosingwa > Ferreira

Chelsea lined up in their standard 4-3-3, but today Alex and Anelka were both injured, so Ivanovic was moved into centre back with Ferreira brought in to play on the right side. With Anelka absence there was a like for like replacement with Solomon Kalou coming in. If I'm honest only one played had a decent game for Chelsea and that Ivanovic. He was powerful at the back, made some storming runs forward and got on the scoresheet. Other than that no Chelsea player stood out. But that's enough of Chelsea today because this game truly belonged to Arsenal...

Subs: 72mins Diaby > Walcott, 75mins Chamakh > Van Persie, 88mins Rosicky > Fabregas

Arsenal dropped Arshavin for this fixture which was understandable as the Russian has been in poor form, which especially showed in their previous game against Manchester United. Walcott was brought in as his replacement. There were also changes at the back and up front with Van Persie starting instead of Morrocan international Chamakh and Frenchman Sebastian Squillaci was replaced by Johan Djourou.

Throughout the game Arsenal were playing their now standard high line but what made this performance stand out was the amount of pressure they were putting on Chelsea when they didn't have possession. Fabregas played almost like a second striker to help Van Persie put pressure on Terry and Ivanovic with the midfield pushing Chelsea into their own half. This tactic worked as it led to Walcotts goal, Malouda lost the ball deep in his own half after pressure from Walcott.

I think that they were able to play the high line due to Chelsea unwillingness to exploit the space behind due to a shortage of pace and a clever runner. Their lack of creativity in midfield may have contributed to this as their was no-one who could thread the "eye of the needle" passes needed to take advantage of the space.

As usual Arsenal hogged the possession having 61% of it but what was noticeable was that the Arsenal players matched Chelsea physically. At points in the game it look like the Gunners were dominating play physically as well as possession wise. Part of Arsenals aggression was also footballing aggression with Theo Walcott making piercing runs in behind Ashley Cole when he left space on his raids forward. Van Persie when he wasn't coming deep was playing off the shoulder of the last defender which made Terry especially wary due to his well documented lack of pace.

All in all I feel that Arsenals pressure and Walcotts willingness to run into spaces behind led to Chelsea being on the back foot for the majority of the game. This was especially the case once Arsenal had taken the lead through Songs driven finish and Chelsea were left to chase the game. Top performance from Arsenal...