Diego Costa gave Chelsea a 1-0 victory over 10-man Arsenal on Sunday, damaging its London rival’s bid to dethrone them as Premier League champions.
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“I think today (Sunday) was a special game”.
While many would expect Mertesacker, who is likely to captain Arsenal in Sunday’s game having missed the 2-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge in September, to provide such motivation, Ozil is a less obvious case.
While Arsenal were left three points below leaders Leicester City, Chelsea put seven points between themselves and the bottom three to ease any worst-case-scenario relegation fears that their fans may be harbouring.
Costa won the foul that resulted in a red card for Arsenal defender Per Mertesacker and scored the first-half goal that secured the win.
Wenger said his winners are not the kind of individuals to talk about their past successes and are instead taking the latest attempt at silverware in their stride.
Striker Giroud was sacrificed for defender Gabriel after Per Mertesacker’s dismissal in the 18th minute, a decision greeted by boos from Gunners fans.
He told Sky Sports 1: “Mertesacker made the challenge but I said he got Mertesacker sent off, you cannot say it’s not true”.
Just as Drogba used to punish Arsenal, scoring 13 goals in 14 games against them, now Costa menaces them, scoring his second goal in three games, and giving them the constant jitters. “It’s a big gap”, he said.
“I don’t know if it’s slight or more severe, but we’ll check on it”, said the Dutchman.
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Costa would soon be withdrawn as Guus Hiddink took the tiring protagonist out of the firing line and replaced him with Loic Remy at the midway point of the half.
