Banter Club Well And Truly Bantered

Oh, how the mighty have fallen! 

I didn't quite realise what a shambles Chelsea have become until I saw them play in the flesh. And Arsenal - down on form and confidence - could not really have asked for easier opposition. Because, without playing that well, they dominated Chelsea in the first half, and had put the game to bed before the half time whistle.

I know that this is an Arsenal blog, but with two of our 'rivals' currently in disarray it's worth having a good old laugh at their expense. Let's deal with That Lot from up the road first. Because just when you think that they can't get any more Spursy than they already are, they go and trump themselves. How absolutely hysterically funny was it to see them fight back from another diabolical start and three goal deficit at Anfield (of all places!) to equalise in injury time, and STILL manage to go on and lose the game! Who knows what delights they'll be serving up for us at the weekend!

But here's the thing. I asked a few people around me which club is bringing them more amusement at the moment; Tottenham or Chelsea. And they all plumped for Chelsea. Because the entire club, from top to bottom, appears to be in complete disarray; and that's ALL down to the new, clueless ownership. How they could have believed that they - with zero experience of European ’soccer’ - could waltz in and outmaneouvre grizzled, veteran owners who've been in place for years is beyond comprehension. And so they've landed themselves with a bloated squad - who’ve had almost all their confidence sapped out of them to boot - a huge FFP issue about to hit them in just a month's time, zero chance of European involvement next season, and Super Frankie Lampard ‘at the wheel'. We can take a pretty educated guess at to why Tuchel left, and we can but wonder how they could have dispensed with Potter without having a plan. Absolutely shambolic.

From an Arsenal supporter's point of view, it's nothing more than their generally obnoxious fans deserve. So many people were saying that it's only when they turn up at Nuestra Casa that we realise quite how despicable their away support are, and that they're actually worse than Tottenham and Manchester United fans. It was so good to watch around 25% of them leaving before half time.

I'll come back to fan interaction later, but I think I can now go on to the game, and to Arsenal's comfortable victory. 

Pre-match, it was good to see Arteta shake up the starting XI. Not surprising to see Partey rested, and the Manager had to come up with a solution to the Holding problem. But Martinelli can consider himself unlucky to be dropped. Let's call it 'rested'. Jorginho was given a start against his former club, there was a well-deserved recall for Trossard on the left, and most intriguingly a first PL start for Jakob Kivior. He did fine, but I'm not sure what dealing with this version of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang proves about his readiness, to be frank.

And I'm also not sure what this selection is going to mean when it comes to Sunday, because Newcastle are an actual organised footballing unit. Something that cannot be levelled at Chelsea, whose sole plan seemed to be to get N'Golo Kante to run around a lot and hope that he made something happen. They certainly had no idea about how to defend against the movement of the Arsenal players; specifically Xhaka and Odegaard, who wandered wherever they fancied without fear of being hindered in any way.

Although Chelsea had the odd moment of hope in the first half - specifically a decent run and shot from Chilwell (one of only three players in a blue shirt to have played as if they cared; the others being Kante and right-winger Madueke) - it was essentially all Arsenal as Chelsea were at 6s and 7s defensively; there for the taking. Chalk and cheese compared to the previous game, and it must have felt like a stroll in the park for Arsenal after their recent chastening experience in Manchester. If I were Frank Lampard, I'd be beating a path to Sky or BT's door come the summer. Coaching and Management are clearly not for him.

Two exquisitely taken goals by Odegaard, and a third from Jesus the result of a goalmouth scramble which saw at least three Chelsea players sat on the floor as the ball crossed the line, were the tidy sum of Arsenal's endeavours in that first half. Game, set and match. And they hadn't needed to be anywhere near their best. Jorginho, serenaded by the home fans, must have enjoyed himself I’m sure. 

Second half - more interesting. I think that Arsenal, in looking to give Chelsea the thrashing they truly deserve, rather turned the game into something resembling an NBA play-off game, with play going from one end to the other for the first 15 minutes. In that time, Arsenal could have notched another goal or two - one goal-line clearance from Thiago Silva springs to mind - but at the end of that passage of play it was actually Chelsea who pulled a goal back; Madueke's somewhat scuffed shot bouncing over Ramsdale. Not good defending at all from Zinchenko to allow him in on goal, to be honest.

And for a while I think we were all concerned. 3-1 is comfortable, but 3-2 would have been another matter. Even though it's this very poor iteration of a Chelsea side that they were up against, I'm sure that nerves were kicking in on the field as well as off of it following the recent sequence of results. But fortunately Arsenal adopted a play-it-safe approach for the remainder of the game, and saw it out without much more concern.

As for Chelsea; they are a shambles. Azpilicueta is clearly finished, Thiago Silva looked disinterested, Kovacic barely broke into a run, Sterling looked a shadow of the player let go by Manchester City in the summer, and Aubameyang was literally invisible; you only knew he was there when the Arsenal fans (rather harshly) booed him. He did single-handedly win us an FA Cup, after all. 

I felt sorry for Auba, to be honest - chucked in for his first start for months and forced to feed off of scraps - and then unceremoniously hooked at half time. Lampard had picked the wrong personnel, and had failed to organise them in any shape or form. They looked down on confidence, and on the beach (Margate; not The Maldives!). Havertz, Gallagher and even Mudryk made a positive difference for them when they came on, but they got exactly what they deserved. 

They’re fortunate that they've already amassed 39 points, because I can't see where they're going to get another one. The thing is that there’s a good number of excellent players in that squad. On paper, anyway. They need to chuck out their deadwood, and get somebody to organise the rest into a coherent unit. Not that I care. I'd recommend that they give Fat Frank an 8 year deal!

So, as I say, little to be learned from the performance. The acid test of the Arsenal squad’s well-being will come on Sunday at St James’ Park. And I guess that they’re still on City’s coat tails - on paper at least - so they must keep going. It would be a great shame if the season were to fizzle out now.

Just to finish on a note of high amusement… the banter between the fans. Started by the Chelsea, of course. Apart from their highly original and imaginative chanting of ‘Chelsea! Chelsea! Chelsea! Chelsea! Chelsea! Chelsea! Chelsea!‘, they commenced with their highly witty ‘Champions of Europe - you’ll never sing that!’. To which they got a resounding ‘Going down! Going down! Going down!’ in response. They followed up with 'We won it all!', to which we responded with the traditional 'You bought it all!'. And which, as successive goals rained in, moved on from ‘One-Nil to the Arsenal’ to ‘Chelsea get battered everywhere they go’ and concluded with ‘Are you Tottenham in disguise?’. All finally completed by a rousing chorus of ‘Super Frankie Lampard!’. I think we broke them. Oh, how we laughed!

Anyway, we now move on to tougher opponents. Newcastle, followed by Brighton. Just stay in touch, guys. You never know (well; you probably do)…

I’m sure that there’s lots of planning already going on behind the scenes at London Colney. Rumours of a £200m ‘war chest’ are sloshing around. There will be some player sales to add, but I’m not sure that even those monstrous sums will be enough to keep Arsenal up with ‘the Joneses’. The sooner the PL deal with those 100+ financial impropriety charges, the better. And if that Qatari prince gets hold of Manchester United, it’ll put those poor little old Kroenkes up against no less than three oil states - no chance of competing with that lot. Do something, UEFA etc!!!!!

In the meantime, the dream is not quite dead. COYG!