It has been 11 games and a win is still elusive. Wenger was hoping for his first win in his 12th game against Mourinho but it was not to be.
The corresponding fixture last season, which was also Wenger’s 1000th match as Arsenal’s manager, ended in a miserable thrashing. Wenger left Stamford Bridge with zero points this time too. Maybe he would take heart that it was not as bad as last year.
At the end of the game, Chelsea were 5 points clear on top and 9 points ahead of Arsenal. The game was also a test of character for Fabregas, who earlier used to play for Arsenal. The Stamford Bridge crowd was fully behind him while the ‘Away’ crowd was booing him throughout the match. The game started off with a lot of physical contact between the players. This, in fact, led Wenger to shove Mourinho in the chest in Chelsea’s technical area after a Gary Cahill challenge on Alexis Sanchez.
A semblance of order was restored although the tension continued to resurface throughout the rest of the game. In fact, it was one of these challenges by Koscienly on Hazard that resulted in a penalty in the first half and led to Chelsea taking a lead to half time. They wrapped up the win with yet another Costa goal from a Fabregas assist (it was Costa’s 9th goal in 7 games) in the 78th minute. The fact that Arsenal didn’t get a shot on goal until the 90th minute suggests how defensive Arsenal were throughout the game.
Chelsea did suffer a loss early in the game when their goalkeeper had an accidental collision with Wilshere and had to taken off in the first half. That did not deter his teammates to excel and close the lid on Arsenal. At the end of the day, Wenger must have been wondering what should he do now to get the better of Mourinho on the pitch….not off it.
