Chelsea Had 77 Seconds. Arsenal Had the Rest.

Before a ball was kicked yesterday, I went for a walk with The Management, and she asked, “How are you feeling about this one? The usual nerves?” My response was that no, I actually felt fine. I did. It was a strange feeling not to have the butterflies in my stomach as I wrote the blog yesterday. After all, this was a new-look Chelsea side, a side that the expectation was would be challenging for the title given they have no European football, and they still might. But I felt quite chilled about the match, and as I made my way to the ground via a quick stop off at a local pub to check in with a couple of the lads, the feeling remained.

Of course, that only lasted 77 seconds once the game kicked off, with Chelsea’s fast start rewarding them with what I’m still trying to work out whether their goal was preventable from our perspective, and if so, how. Firstly, I don’t think that the Konsa foul was a foul. It looked like he won the ball to me, but that’s a moot point because even when the decision is made, there is still a few actions for which we can avoid conceding. I think, perhaps, Gabriel will be slightly frustrated with himself for his part in not winning the initial header, as the ball was floated into the box, then the second header away and into the air wasn’t quite far enough or wide enough to alleviate the danger completely. Even so, the ball kind of drops into a fortunate position and in the ground and in real time I was frustrated that nobody closed Rogers down on the edge of the box, but when you watch the replay, you see that White actually does close the space, sticks a boot out, but Rogers catches it and Raya can’t quite get there. Maybe David Raya might think he could have got down a little quicker, but it was the kind of low-xG finish we came to see of Rogers last season, as well as why Aston Villa were such high xG over-performers. I actually looked at my phone about two minutes before we’d scored and saw that up until that point, that chance that Villa had created was worth 0.02xG, so it shows you just how much of a ‘everything goes right’ finish it was for the Chelsea player.

His celebration annoyed me. Right in front of us by the corner flag n’all, doing the Thierry Henry celebration, smiling and laughing at us, goading us. Up until that point there’s been no animosity between Arsenal fans and Rogers, so why he felt he needed to point at The Arsenal flag on the corner, do a little Henry mocking, cocky, so early in the game, I am not really sure. But sometimes these kinds of games need a pantomime villain and he set his stall out to be that from that moment onwards. There was the Konsa tackle that we all roared with delight at in the second half, the handbags with Declan Rice (who I see a lot of people – Arsenal fans as well – saying that it was a cynical trip by him but I’m still not 100% sure – maybe red and white-tinted specs n’all that jazz), then as he was taken off in the second half the “you should have signed for a big club” chants as he trudged off towards the Chelsea bench with us winning and time running down.

But back to that first half, and the early goal and whilst it’s really annoying to score so early, it does give you enough time to turn around any deficit. Which is exactly what we eventually did. And we really did from the second we kicked off again after two minutes. We were supertb straight away, and as I’ve already half-mentioned with the xG, by halftime we were well value for not only being level with the World’s Most Reprehensible Football Club, but perhaps being ahead. I mean, technically we’d had the ball in the net twice, so if you’re doing a Jose Mourinho, you could argue that. It was a great boost to be level just 12 minutes after they’d scored, but Konsa was clearly offside and the second that it came up that VAR were checking for a possible offside, you kind of knew that it would be ruled out. Anything other than offside has a degree of subjectivity about it when it comes to VAR, but offsides are usually quite black and white.

But we had already shown in that time that we were going to get on top of Chelsea and whilst I’ve seen some laughable comments from Chelsea fans about how a draw might have been a fair result, the reality is that this was the performance of a side who know they are Champions, know they are the best team in the Premier League, know they are the ones that are there to beat and know that they have the capacity to turn big games around.

And that’s exactly what we did.

Havertz first in the first half on 25 minutes, and whilst I was properly nervous about how the day would unfold when they got their goal so early, the fact we scored on 25 should have made me realise that actually, this Arsenal team were going to do the businss on the day. Havertz’s goal wasn’t the cleanest – I thought he didn’t strike it with the most venom I’ve seen and Emi Martinez probably shouldn’t get beaten at his near post – but the fact that it was him who scored was the most delicious. They laughed at us when we paid what we paid for him. They mocked him and couldn’t believe they’d managed to offload a player who they thought was a bit of a dud. But in The Arsenal he’s found a home, he contributes, he’s a key part of our team and he has fans who love him. And he repays us, and punishes those who formerly supported him. It’s poetic justice.

And then to Martin Odegaard’s goal early in the second half, which was another open play beauty, which is all the more delicious given that rival fans are calling us boring to watch because we “OnLy GeT sEt PiEcE gOaLs”. Have some of that, doubters. The little shimmy run from Tzolis and then pass was good, the dummy from Havertz was superb, then the finish from Odegaard was of a man full of confidence right now. It was brilliant. Just like his overall game on the day and he rightly got the man-of-the-match award on the day. He was imperious, ensuring that he dictated the play and our patterns on the ball, playing an early part in his own goal, as well as ensuring that he covered the ground and pressed as hard as he usually does. He’s already showing that this season he wants to prove a point, and for us as fans, that’s perfection.

I need to wrap up today’s thinkings, as I have a fair bit to do today, but I could probably drop another 500 – 1,000 words on other players if I had time. Tzolis was great, Konsa put in a good defensive home debut, the Gabriel/Martinez ‘kick to the head’, etc – but I will leave it there, be back tomorrow as we prep for Napoli, and hope that you and yours have a great day. We’ll be doing a Same Old Arsenal pod a little later if you fancy joining us. It’ll be from 5.45pm UK time, over on the YouTube channel here. Otherwise, I’ll be back tomorrow, so see you all then.