All very predictable: report and player ratings.

CHELSEA 2 ARSENAL 0

This was all so predictable…

Plenty of possession, not enough clear cut chances and liable to concede. It was what we expected and what we got.

Gripe one of two…

We simply lack something in the final third. Too often we go for the pass because it is easier than really grasping the bull by the horns and going for it ourselves.

Gripe two of two…

Defensively our shape is wrong. So often there was far, far too much space between the midfield and defence. Far, far too often a long punt would leave us in a sticky position. And at the heart of this was our midfield positioning. Wilshere played in a role that can reasonably be described as midfield. Abou Diaby was more or less off the striker. Ditto Samir Nasri. Ditto Andrei Arshavin. Alex Song was frequently far more advanced than he should have been and continually seemed to be chasing the play. When he was making tackles, often it was from a position where he was further away from our goal than their player.

I don’t want to pick out Song…

But he has struggled of late and the realisation dawns that for all his massive improvement, he probably isn’t that world class central midfielder we are crying out for. With other priorities in the summer most of us were content to see the midfield untouched so long as reinforcements further back arrived. But watching the last few games I do wonder if maybe we should again be scouting for a real defensive midfielder.

As for the chances…

The Koscielny one really was quite a miss. Baffling frankly. After that too many of them were half or nearly chances. When a very decent cross did land on Chamakh’s head, he should have done better.

If you want to complain about their opening goal…

Argue not over the foul we didn’t get because frankly we had long enough to regroup. Argue instead about Drogba being offside when the ball was played to Cole initially. For me it was fairly important: it explained why he seemed to arrive fractionally ahead of the defender when the ball was eventually played across. From then on it was pure Drogba against Arsenal. 13 in 13 against a team such as us (don’t laugh) is truly exceptional.

Song clearly didn’t fancy…

Getting in the way of Alex’s howitzer for the second. I know turning away from it is probably instinctive, but for the money he is paid, he should have taken one in the face frankly.

There is not a lot else to say really…

Other than it is certainly true we missed our injured players. But the truth is our players are always injured.

Player ratings…

Fabianski (7.5) was immaculate apart from his early attempt to turn a harmless cross towards goal. Sagna (7) got some good crosses in, Clichy (6.5) was not quite so accurate. Koscielny (6.5) and Squillaci (6) dealt fairly well with the Chelsea threat with the exception of the nightmare chance for Anelka in the second half. The latter’s distribution was also occasionally iffy.

Song (5.5), as I have said, struggled in my view and rarely got his positioning right. Wilshere (7) brought impressive industry and use of the ball at times, Diaby (7) had one of his better games shorn, as he was, of defensive responsibility and Arshavin (6) just didn’t do enough and has to shed that extra pound! Nasri (6.5) looked as likely to score as anyone, Chamakh (6) worked hard but at the crucial moments failed to deliver and substitute Rosicky (7) had one of his better cameo appearances, putting in some decent balls. Emmanuel-Thomas (7) looked too big to play for Arsenal and Vela (6) managed to screw up the control for the kind of one on one he would bury at 4-0 in our favour.

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