Wild opening salvo against Chelsea hints at exciting times for Arsenal fans | Barney Ronay
The home side’s response to Chelsea’s early goal was to play breathless attacking football
We’re back, baby. So, so back. Well, OK, not exactly back. But back down the time tunnel, for a while at least, as on a powder blue afternoon at the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal and Chelsea produced an opening half-hour that felt like a throwback to prime Barclays of the early 2000s.
In that period this really did feel like a twist on a classic: spells of midfield murder-ball, stretched and flustered full‑backs, players hurling themselves at the defensive lines like the fall guys in a cowboy western being tossed out through the saloon-bar doors.
Arsenal had 10 shots in that period and played breathless, physically overwhelming attacking football. The game settled after they scored their equaliser. In the second half it became simply gripping and episodic, broken up by subs and stoppages, which is the current dynamic. Second halves: these are a problem. But Arsenal never really looked like losing their 2-1 lead.
The key to the day was that agreeably wild opening half‑hour, evidence that both teams have will and the energy to progress this season. Which will, in turn, be good news for the Premier League.
About last season. It was OK, wasn’t it? Quite a lot of demo-mode football. Games that were like watching someone knitting a scarf. Teams with such elite levels of defensive organisation the experience is like watching one of those police motorbike display teams doing a pyramid, while a group of men on laptops furiously study the data.
All very orderly, and disciplined. Just lacking in colour and fire. And more significantly, the higher gears that mean you might actually be able to run step for step with Paris Saint-Germain, or blow away, rather than slowly strangle, an opponent.
It is about balance of course, about releasing the urge for total control. There was a moment on 87 minutes that captured both sides of this. Chelsea were awarded a free-kick 25 yards out in front of goal: high drama, a moment to be seized, necks craned forward in the seats. At which point Danny Welbeck, on as a late sub, sprinted straight to Reece James as he prepared to shoot, looking like a man in a state of high alert, some vital mission being run. Welbeck’s mission turned out to be handing James a piece of paper and urging him to read it. What was this? Expected 87th-minute free-kick numbers? Forty-seven per cent scoring chance uplift high and to the left? Maybe it just said “Score, dufus”, in which case, more of this please. James studied it dutifully, then paced out his run again. And to be fair, if the note did say hammer it straight into Declan Rice’s head, then job done, great process everyone. But the overriding feeling was: no, thank you. Away with you, interventionist wonks, tracksuited control freakery. This is art. This is play, this is drama. Whatever it is, it’s definitely not time for a briefing.
The other thing, simultaneous to this, was Morgan Rogers walking off around the pitch and being barracked relentlessly by the Arsenal fans – “You should have signed for a big club” – but looking spent, exhausted and emotionally drained, after giving everything to that part of the spectacle that felt like the counterpoint to Welbeck’s note, the wildness and the energy that feeds this thing.
There really was nothing not to like about that start, which was all jam, all sugar rush. First there was the manager match‑up, a kind of Basque childhood romcom revenge drama. The league needs rivalries and sibling symmetry. It feeds off this stuff. Hmm. They might have to start jabbing each other in the chest a bit more. But it was still fascinating to see Xabi Alonso on the touchline. This was fresh meat for the eye: jawline, pecs, tan, elite smart-casual styling, and above all an effortless sense of aura. There’s a new sheriff in town. Even the sun had appeared, giving off a weird, dead September heat, the sky behind the stand a pale Hockney blue. And Chelsea scored with 1min 17sec gone, Rogers finishing on the volley with a measured, very deliberate grubber into the corner.
For a while these two teams just ran into each other. Emi Martínez was kicked in the head but got up and was still booed relentlessly. Arsenal had a goal disallowed. They produced one flowing full-length move, set up by a lovely roll and spin by Myles Lewis‑Skelly. On 25 minutes it was 1-1, the goal all Kai Havertz’s own work as he drifted inside like a gangling, bookish Arjen Robben then shot low inside the near post.
Havertz was also involved in the decisive moment, producing a lovely, and indeed deeply unfashionable dummy to put Martin Ødegaard in space in front of goal. It wasn’t even really a dummy, Havertz just dribbled his foot away, with no real feint or shoulder dip in the classic dummy style.
Arsenal’s fans are sometimes frustrated by Ødegaard. He’s not direct enough, doesn’t shoot, always gilding the lily, regilding it, taking it back to the gilders for another look. Maybe this is how you get him to shoot. Put him right in front of goal with time to see every option, run the numbers, and conclude, ‘oh, well, I really am going to have to do this?’
The finish was emphatic. After that the game became snarling and mean for a bit. Arsenal did enter one of their slow periods, taking the air out of it, killing the game a bit. But this was an excellent win against a very promising Chelsea.
A final thought. The question will be asked: why don’t Arsenal always play like this? Why stop with the rage and forward gallops? The answer is that you can’t. It’s physically very hard. This is not a computer game. They’re humans, with 90 minutes to run. The real question is, can you raise it again, take that 30-minute spell and store it away, keep it ready in your repertoire? If so, and on the evidence here, we really might have an Arsenal upgrade on our hands.
