Arsenal 5-0 Chelsea: Odegaard pulls the strings as Gunners destroy hapless blues

Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction – Video

Arsenal moved 4 points clear at the top of the table after demolishing a hapless Chelsea 5-0 last night – our biggest ever win against them.

Mikel Arteta made a couple of changes to his side, starting Takehiro Tomiyasu at left-back, and handing a surprise start to Thomas Partey in midfield. It didn’t take long for those to take effect, nice build-up play saw Declan Rice drive on and play the ball outside him for Leandro Trossard. The Belgian took a touch and absolutely drilled a shot between the keeper and the near post, one of those where it always looks bad for the goalkeeper because he should have it covered, but the power and precision with which he hit the shot meant it was far more a good finish than a bad mistake.

1-0 up after 5 minutes, we should have been playing against ten men after 9. Nicolas Jackson’s challenge on Tomiyasu was high, late and saw the Arsenal man’s ankle twist badly under the contact. VAR for the night, Peter Bankes, checked it and cleared it, and for the second game running, the opposition got away with a clear red card offence. I like to check Peter’s bankes account, tbh.

The fact we won 5-0 means I can go off on this a bit without accusations of making excuses or anything else, but for all the talk of PGMOL, officials, and VAR, one of the basics of their job is to ensure the safety of players. By allowing that challenge to go unpunished they absolutely failed in that part of their remit, and again you can’t help but wonder whether there has been a behind-closed-doors remit about the threshold for physical contact. Even so, this was a horrible challenge, and Jackson should have been sent off. I look forward to the bloke from ESPN covering for their incompetence again, and telling us how Tomiyasu’s shin actually assaulted Jackson’s studs.

I think it’s fair to say Arsenal should have scored more goals in this game, and in the first half in particular. Kai…

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Author : arseblog

Publish date : 2024-04-24 06:25:44

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