Arsenal were rarely troubled as they recorded an impressive 3-0 victory over London rivals Chelsea at the Emirates on Saturday evening.
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Wenger’s 500th and 1,000th games in charge of Arsenal both ended in losses to Chelsea but his fortunes finally changed on the 20th anniversary of his appointment. In the first half, I think it was almost flawless.
“It was shambolic. People will say it was better in the second half, but we gave ourselves far too much to do, as against Liverpool”, he said on Chelsea TV, assessing the game.
Also, the recently-published extracts of journalist Rob Beasley’s book on Mourinho in The Daily Mail revealed the Manchester United manager wanted to break Wenger’s face. I hope through work we have more good times than bad times.
The emphatic win was Arsenal’s first over Chelsea in the league since October 2011 and left Wenger applauding a performance of “style and steel” from his team.
He reaches his milestone on October 1 and, despite being in charge for two decades, the Frenchman had not tasted a Premier League victory over Chelsea in almost a quarter of that time.
“After today we are thinking that we must work a lot because we are great team only on paper”.
“Before that period, we were always beating them – after that, they were always the stronger team for a few years. I am working hard to do that”.
The Hammers are keeping the former Barca star’s situation under review as the ripples from the midfielder’s early-season absence – he was a sub for the first five Premier League games – swept around the top flight.
With 12 minutes played, Gary Cahill dawdled on the ball before making a mess of his backpass and allowing Sanchez to race through and chip coolly beyond Courtois.
Just like Didier Drogba, the Brazilian born Spanish global is already having a good scoring record against Arsenal with two goals in three meetings.
A slick passing combination culminated in Alex Iwobi intelligently picking out Hector Bellerin on the right-hand side of the box and the Spaniard’s low cross was swept home by Walcott.
Coquelin was out for 10 weeks with a knee problem last season and Arsene Wenger confirmed it appears to be a similar issue.
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Arsenal have enough pace in their side to frighten any defence – even one as resolute as the likes of Atletico Madrid – but it’s seldom that they all click during the same match.
