Same Old Jose Outwits Same Old Arsene Arsenal 0 - 0 Chelsea



Don't get me wrong.  I do not think Mourinho is a more intelligent man than our Arsene.  In fact, he is quite predictable.  He is the King of negative football.  He is the manager than knows how to defend and not drop three points.  He did it against Barcelona in 2010 making it to the Champions league Final beating them 3-2 on aggregate by losing 1-0 in the final game.  Barcelona accused him of playing negative football then too.  We always accuse him of that.  And that's what upsets me the most about the result yesterday.

We should have been more prepared. 

I like Theo's impact on a game.  We missed it for over two months.  But to start him against a team that you know will employ a defensive approach to the game is a mystery to me.  Theo has never had much of an influence in those types of matches.  Why not employ more creativity instead?  Santi's form has been off lately, but with that nine day rest, he could have made the difference. Post-match, I'm left wondering what a combination of he and Ozil and Tommy would have looked like.

The one weapon we did have against the proverbially parked bus was a big man up front.  Olivier hustled all game and made the runs that put him on the end of two out of the two shots we had on target.  He did not convert though.  That's the rub, isn't it?  Even if I disagree with the some of the player selection, we did have a couple of chances.  Ollie works hard, he's a team player, but he is just not efficient enough.  At least one of those should have been put away.

Of course, we could have had another goal if we had been given a penalty for Theo's foul in the box.  Or Chelsea could have gone down to 10 men when Mikel tried to break the other Mikel's leg or when Ramires tried the same tact.  The latter got a yellow the former got...nothing.  I'm sure Arleta is gimping around today.  Then we have the high kick to Ozil's face...which started a near brawl (I like our players rushing to Mesut's defense).  Mike Dean really had no control over that game.  Arsenal ended up with more yellow cards (2) than Chelsea (1).  I went rampant on Twitter accusing Dean of being crooked.  I'm not sure that's true.  I was tweeting in the heat of the moment.   After sleeping on it, I've decided he's probably not crooked...he's just really bad at his job.  All these refs have a difficult function, but I can't imagine the bunch of them missing all of the calls that Dean did.  Relegate him immediately.

Where do we go from here?  Drawing with Chelsea does not have to be the game that marks our season.  We are sitting in second place behind Liverpool on goal differential.  The good news is that we have West Ham, Newcastle, and Cardiff and then Spurs to play next.  Although we have only taken five points from five games so far this December, we can definitely up our ration by winning all four games here.  They all are there for the taking.  Meanwhile, our top-of-the-table competitors are playing each other.  Terrific for us.

The key for us, of course, will be rotation.  West Ham takes place the day after Christmas (Thursday), and Newcastle then on Sunday followed by Cardiff on Wednesday, New Year's Day.  That is three games in seven days.  Yowza.  Welcome to the Premier League Christmas schedule. 

Well, that's it for now.  I'll give a match preview on the Hammers which probably won't be written until late Christmas evening.  Until then, let's be thankful we don't have to endure more of Jose's smugness until March.  I really try to be the bigger person and not let the guy bother me, but that doesn't always work.  Have a great Christmas Gooners!