🎯 The main takeaway: Few things better than beating Chelsea
I know that if you are a local to North London, Arsenal’s most hated rival is Tottenham but for me thousands of miles away, I HATE Chelsea.
There is just something about the club, the fans, and the way that they operate that really makes me despise them.
That is what makes beating them so sweet and under Mikel Arteta there has been lots of joy in this fixture.
Since January 2020 Arsenal have played Chelsea 17 times, they have won 12 times, losing just once (back in 2021). Over that time the combined scoreline is 34-16. After years of Chelsea coming in and doing the big brother thing to Arsenal, the shoe is fully on the other foot.
This match was no different. The scoreline says this was just a single goal victory but this was much more dominate from Arsenal than what the scoreboard said.
Chelsea got their early opener but that was just about it from them and this match was basically all Arsenal.
Chelsea have been an early media darling with their two opening wins but here they got reminded that they still have a long way to go and that this Arsenal team is quite a bit better than Fulham and Brighton attacking them (plus Arsenal won’t gift you goals like those teams did).
Arsenal remain perfect and look damn good.
📈 The positives:
Arsenal show that they have the heart and can respond to adversity. That opening goal gave Chelsea exactly what they would have needed and set them up to try and repeat the tactics that have seen them score a 7 goals to start the season. Chelsea did have a bit of threat on the counter attack but Arsenal did just enough to snuff it out. Outside of those few moments, Chelsea just didn’t have enough to generate transition against Arsenal’s midfield or press and they just crashed upon them with wave after wave of attacks.
Even after the game went back to even Chelsea struggled to create much and then when down a goal they managed just 7 shots and none of them worth more than 7% on expected goals.
